Gilroy and Morgan Hill elementary schools failed to comply after
two-year assessment
Morgan Hill – California’s academics-only recipe for public schools may be producing results on state tests, but the dish is missing a key ingredient, according to a report released last week.
The report reveals that half of the schools assessed by the California Department of Education, including the Morgan Hill and Gilroy unified school districts, failed to provide elementary school students with the minimum physical education requirement of 200 minutes every 10 days.
The CDE collected records from school districts for the last two school years.
“It’s been a continuing problem in the state,” said Olivia Schaad, Gilroy Unified School District director of curriculum and instruction. “But I think it’s time that people do something about it.”
Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Alan Nishino said, “We only had two schools that were found to not be doing the required 20 minutes. And we have several schools that are going above and beyond what is required in their programs.”
El Toro Elementary fifth graders, for example benefit from a whole “Wellness” program instituted by fifth grade teachers Alice Packard and Jackie Lee, Nishino said, adding that they use a Santa Clara County program, which not only focuses on exercise but also on nutrition.
In Gilroy, district officials were well aware that elementary students weren’t receiving enough exercise before the California Center for Public Advocacy released the data on Thursday. Last year, the state conducted an audit of the district’s PE program. They observed classes and looked over fitness schedules.
State officials told the district to update old curriculum, reconfigure courses at the high school and keep track of the students with doctor’s waivers by computer, Schaad said. But because physical education is a required class in middle and the first two years of high school, the major violations occurred at the elementary school level.
Some schools are better than others at meeting the 200-minute requirement, which amounts to about 20 minutes a day, “but in some schools I don’t have any evidence that it’s happening,” Schaad.
That the fitness allotment in Gilroy varies from site-to-site and teacher-to-teacher, is the crux of the problem. There’s no consistent curriculum. Some teachers are fitness advocates and make sure their students jump around, while others are not, Schaad said.
Schools struggling to reach the state goal of 800 on the Academic Performance Index – which includes every campus except Luigi Aprea Elementary School – also tend to have less time in the day for fitness. And many educators say No Child Left Behind mandates pressure them to forgo P.E. or at least trim it.
For example, teachers at Glen View Elementary School, a low-income, low-scoring school, had to fit so many academic requirements into their day, exercise ended up on the back-burner, Schaad said.
The district employs P.E. teachers for elementary school but only for grades four through five. In grades kindergarten through third the regular classroom teacher is supposed to head P.E., making the activity much less consistent, Schaad said.
