New mandatory gym classes could set back weaker high school students

According to Manitoba Education officials, the decision to phase in two compulsory credits over the course of two years is not expected to affect the number of high schools graduating or their ability to maintain their grades.

In August 2004, Premier Gary Doer announced the creation of an all-party task forced called Healthy Kids, Healthy Futures. This task force was designed to ask Manitobans how the health of the province’s youth could be improved and to then make recommendations to the government of Manitoba.

The final results of this task force included the recommendation to make physical education mandatory for both Senior 3 and 4 students. According to Manitoba Education officials, the decision to phase in two compulsory credits over the course of two years is not expected to affect the number of high schools graduating or their ability to maintain their grades.

Darryl Gervais, curriculum development updates coordinator of the Manitoba department of education, said that the key to this new curriculum development is not the increase in graduation requirements but rather that “[students’] increased physical activity and health knowledge will result in them being healthy, active citizens.”

Jean-Vianney Auclair, assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba department of education, said that his role in the task force was to ensure that physical education was mandated for Senior 3 and 4 students.
“The government has made the decisions once the report was released to implement all the recommendations of the report [ . . . ] so now kids, or students, are required to graduate with this year 29 credits and the following year with 30 credits.”

According to Auclair, certain schools offer alternative courses such as outdoor education or leadership, and therefore students may be able to include a second physical education course as an optional requirement.
Auclair said that implementation of these two compulsory credits is “very flexible” and therefore should not lead to different outcomes in schools with strong physical education programs and those with less developed programs.

“School divisions can offer in school 100 per cent of the course or they can decide to implement as much as 75 per cent of the course outside of the school setting. So there is a mandated 25 per cent that has to be done in school, but the school divisions have the flexibility to determine how much time they will allow outside of the school setting for the students to obtain the credit.”

Auclair said this decision was made to accommodate school divisions with different priorities and infrastructure, as well as to accommodate the needs of students with busy schedules.

According to Auclair, this allows for a variety of physical activities to be used to obtain credits whether it is involvement on the school hockey team or “as simple as a student [deciding] to some jogging on a regular basis.”

To ensure that students complete physical education requirements taken outside of school, Auclair said students must complete a plan and then the physical education teacher must approve set plan. Auclair said that the approved plan is then sent home to students’ parents so that parents can approve the time logged by the student for physical activities completed.

Lorie Wilson-Czyrnyj, guidance councillor at Sanford Collegiate, said that her only concern with this new phys-ed curriculum is that students may not actually perform physical activities they opt to complete at home.
Czyrnyj said that she does not see this having an obvious effect on the number of students graduating.

“I guess ultimately it could. There are some students that don’t like phys-ed, particularly girls actually [ . . . ] I could see students say they want to [complete their physical education] at home and they don’t. That’s were I could see it affecting the drop out rate. But that’ all.”

Czyrnyj said that she could also see that it could potentially affect academically weaker students who would have chosen phys-ed as their option course and now they must take phys-ed and find a replacement option course.

“I’m a little worried that it’s going to [effect] some kids who’d normally take phys-ed as an option, the weaker students that maybe aren’t as academic and if they’re in a school that doesn’t offer other subjects. You know if you think about it, phys-ed might have been their fourth Grade 12 subject and now they have to have five.”

Czyrnyj stressed that this was a guidance-councillor point of view.
“When I talked to a phys-ed person, not from [Sanford Collegiate], they said ‘Oh, I never thought of that.’”

Gervais said that the inclusion of physical education as a mandatory credit for Senior 3 or 4 students was not followed by an equal reduction in the number of optional course credits required was “that it’s important to provide students with the opportunities to earn credits towards whatever the goals are that they’ve set in their lives.”

“The addition of phys-ed and health education is about promoting healthy living for all students.”