Being a student at Liberty, I know I must take two physical education classes in order to graduate. I also know that there are many varieties of sports offered here. Sports involve, and most of the time, features just as much or even more physical activity than P.E. So my question is, why don’t we use the after school sports as P.E. credits?

There are a lot of students who are involved in sports at Liberty. So why don’t we get the P.E. credit out of the way and count sports for the credit? After all, sports do contain a lot of physical activity. Wouldn’t it also encourage more students to get into the sports provided at Liberty?

“I play golf and if anyone who didn’t have any experience with it I would encourage them to do better,” junior Kyle Kaestner said. “If doing sports counted as a P.E. credit, I feel that it would be beneficial.”

Many schools around the United States use this system as a way to get their P.E. credits out of the way. According to National Federation of State High Schools Association (NFHS.org), “this measure was designed to lighten those students’ workloads, and ensure room for classes that fulfilled the districts’ other graduation requirements.”

If Liberty offered this, I agree it would help students complete their graduation requirements, but we also have to look at the negatives.

We tried digging further into why we don’t count sports as a P.E. credit by talking to a counselor, Ms. Wootten. While she was unfamiliar with the reasons why most school districts don’t count sports as P.E. credits, she did add that students who do sports are really the ones who want to do the P.E. classes like weight training.

If we did put this action in motion, what would it do to the P.E. class enrollment and staff at Liberty?

“The family environment with the coaches would be gone since you would have to reduce staff at Liberty,” Coach Jolliff said. P.E. also provides a variety of different activities for students, so they don’t just have to focus on one activity.

P.E. involves types of sports such as volleyball, soccer, football and more. It gives students a chance to engage in an activity they may find they really enjoy or just a time to be active during the school day.

There are many pros and cons in this situation. There are also many perspectives you have to look at, whether you are a student, athlete, or coach.