SOUTHWICK – Beginning next school year, seniors at Southwick Tolland Granville Regional High School will be required to take a physical education course in order to graduate.
Seniors will have three options to fulfill this requirement, a state mandate that was unanimously approved at the school committee meeting last night.
Superintendent Dr. John Barry said the committee was not given a lot of time to discuss how this will be implemented, but it is “a compliance decision.”
“We need to be in compliance within 12 months, so we don’t have a lot of study time,” said Barry.
Currently, the district has mandatory physical ed./health courses for all students in grades nine and 10 and a required 11/12 course, generally taken by grade 11. These courses taken together meet the current total graduation requirements of 10 credits of phys. ed. and five credits of health.
Barry said the new requirement is that all students in grade 12 must take phys. ed. The committee approved three options, including taking the 11/12 course again in the senior year.
“The second option is a quarter-course,” said Barry. “This would be one term.”
Seniors can opt to take this phys. ed./wellness course paired with an elective, such as art, that would run concurrently for one term.
“There is a third option, which is a five-week course after school at the beginning of the year, and another five-week course would offered at the end of the year,” Barry said. “Students would need to pre-apply.”
Principal Pamela Hunter said the course is better described as an “outside school” course.
“We can try to work around practices – it would not be a 2-4 p.m. thing,” said Hunter.
She said the second option would be limited to 20 students. While half the students took the PE/wellness course, the other half would take an arts course, then, they would “flip-flop.”
Barry said CPR and first-aid could be part of the wellness portion of the program. He said it is a work in progress. However, the committee needed to approve accepting the three options in order to notify parents and students of the requirement.
