Physical Education

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

Does the government have a role to play in preventing childhood obesity, helping smokers quit and heading off chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease? Yes, according to survey results published Monday by the journal Health Affairs. Two health policy experts from Harvard University wanted to find out how the public was responding to what they called “new frontier” public health initiatives aimed at changing consumer behavior, such as New York City's ban on super-sized sodas.

There's no slacking off now for school kids -- the California Court of Appeal has ruled that public elementary schools must provide 200 minutes of physical education every 10 days (an average 20 minutes a day), in compliance with state laws. For middle and high schools, that number bumps up to an average 40 minutes a day. The ruling overturns a Sacramento trial court decision that the law was not legally enforceable, and that parents could not enforce the law. A parent in the Auburn Unified School District had sued the district, the California Department of Education and the school board to enforce the law. "Thankfully, the California Court of Appeals recognizes that law means law and that public schools must provide adequate physical education.

Half a dozen arms reached for the sky, some gently grazing a basketball as it escaped the court and thudded out of bounds at the Edward Roybal Learning Center. Despite their best efforts at trying to keep the ball in the game, both teams showed no hint of defeat, even after one was declared the winner. The Los Angeles Unified School District/Special Olympics Unified Basketball League's Eastern finals were underway, and the mood was decidedly different from that of other sports finals.

In "26% of Kids Overweight, Study Finds" (Dec. 12), it was quite disturbing to find out that there are kids in middle school who weigh over 200 pounds. That's more than I -- a 36-year-old male -- weigh now. When I grew up, my school had a physical education class every day. I think it took an act of God to get excused from P.E. We kids played kickball, softball and basketball, on blacktop no less. You learned to take your bumps and bruises or stay on your feet. At home, after school or on the weekends, unless it was raining or getting dark, we were outside.

If the problems of money and quality of instruction in our public schools are to be solved, the first step should be to slaughter some sacred cows. The first is physical education. It should be offered as an elective rather than compulsory. P.E. is no more than a fun-and-games interlude between important studies. The average student can match the physical fitness claimed for physical education by walking a mile to and from school each day. This would cost nothing. As an elective, physical education could be scheduled after school along with competitive sports.

UC Irvine administrators have proposed closing the campus' physical education department. If the plan is approved by the Academic Senate in April, all physical education courses will be transferred to UCI's campus recreation program. Starting next fall, sports classes would be offered for no credit and students would pay fees for some of the classes. Current courses offered through campus recreation, such as aerobics, have a variety of fees, but physical education classes are free.

Jerry R. Russom, the former head of physical education for the Los Angeles Unified School District, has died at a Pasadena hospital. He was 82. A resident of Glendale, he died Wednesday of complications from heart disease and Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Jean Russom. Born in Broken Bow, Neb., Russom earned a bachelor of science degree in 1931 and a master of arts degree in 1939, both from UCLA, where he was a quarterback for three seasons during his undergraduate years.

More than 50 parents and teachers attending the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board meeting Tuesday night protested plans to eliminate physical education classes for elementary school students in the district. The group pleaded with the board to spare the physical education teachers from cuts.

Instructor Diane Henry, who began her teaching career at Cypress College 15 years ago as a part-time trainer, has been named dean of physical education. Henry, 41, replaces Larry Mercadante, who served as dean for 13 years before being named vice president of Student Development Services this summer. Henry was selected for the position from a field of 30 applicants, according to college officials.

Give kids a break, doctors said Monday - or you might find that they have trouble paying attention in the classroom. In a policy statement released on Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on School Health, pediatricians urged schools to maintain regularly scheduled recess, arguing that it offered academic, social and physical benefits for children of all ages, from elementary school kids to adolescents. Even as increased pressure to raise standardized test scores has pushed schools to consider cutting recess, the personal time for kids shouldn't be curbed to make more time for classroom study, they added, noting that, “Ironically, minimizing or eliminating recess may be counterproductive to academic achievement.” For similar reasons, withholding recess also should not be used as a means of punishment, they said.

Physical education may be disappearing from some schools, but a study finds that kids who engage in sports or physical activity may do better academically. Researchers analyzed 14 studies (most from the U.S.) looking at the relationship between exercise and school performance. Of those, 10 were based on observation, four used interventions. The number of participants, aged 6 to 18, ranged from 53 to about 12,000. The study was released Monday in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine . Although some of the studies were inconsistent in discovering a link between being more active and better academic performance, other papers did find evidence.

Fewer than one-third of California students who took a statewide physical fitness test this year managed to pass all six areas assessed, new results show. State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, a longtime cross-country coach who has made physical fitness a signature issue, announced the results this week as he launched a program to improve children's health. The campaign will use such celebrity athletes as NBA all-star Bill Walton and others to visit schools to urge students to drink more water, eat more fruits and vegetables and increase their exercise.

Physical education classes may be scarce in some schools, but an activity program combined with school lessons could boost academic performance, a study finds. Research presented recently at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Denver looked at the effects of a 40-minute-a-day, five-day-a-week physical activity program on test scores of first- through sixth-graders at a public school. This program was a little different from most, since it incorporated academic lessons along with exercise.

After years of delays and false starts, the project seemed to be nearing completion, finally. It was the spring of 2009, and construction crews at Los Angeles City College appeared to have accomplished the neat trick of building a track and athletic field on the roof of a new parking structure. Field boundaries had been marked in white on the artificial turf. Bleachers had been installed, and workers were laying the track. Billions to Spend: Complete Coverage It was easy to imagine that students would soon be playing soccer or running sprints against a backdrop of pencil-thin palms, chocolate-colored hills and the Hollywood sign.

Calling it a moral obligation and matter of national security, President Obama unveiled an ambitious government effort Monday to increase support for military families. The push is aimed at using the full force of the federal government to aid the families of the country's more than 2.2 million service members. Four areas are being emphasized: the mental and physical health of military families; the education of their children; the educational and career opportunities afforded spouses; and the availability and quality of child care within the armed services.

Last spring, a million California public-school students in the fifth, seventh and ninth grades took a mandated state test. They failed it miserably. But unlike the often-hysterical run-up to the Stanford 9 tests, few had even known in advance that these tests were on the educational agenda. No one had helped kids prepare for the test; no one had made sure teachers were adequately trained before administering the test, and no one had pressured school officials to cough up more resources to make sure their kids passed.

Woodland Hills Elementary School has received a $20,634 grant from a Woodland Hills-based health-maintenance organization to purchase state-of-the-art physical fitness equipment. The grant, from CareAmerica Health Plans, will be used to purchase permanent outdoor equipment and develop a cardiovascular fitness and wellness curriculum, the company said.

There's no slacking off now for school kids -- the California Court of Appeal has ruled that public elementary schools must provide 200 minutes of physical education every 10 days (an average 20 minutes a day), in compliance with state laws. For middle and high schools, that number bumps up to an average 40 minutes a day. The ruling overturns a Sacramento trial court decision that the law was not legally enforceable, and that parents could not enforce the law. A parent in the Auburn Unified School District had sued the district, the California Department of Education and the school board to enforce the law. "Thankfully, the California Court of Appeals recognizes that law means law and that public schools must provide adequate physical education.

Alfonso B. Perez, a veteran administrator who helped shape special education programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District and as principal guided his alma mater, Roosevelt High, during a tense period of Chicano protest, died July 2 at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. He was 91. The cause was a heart attack, said his grandson, Paul Aguirre. Perez joined the district as a teacher for disabled students in 1947, when few resources were available in public schools for students with physical and mental impairments.