Aug. 29--If Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 has its way, its elementary school students will be able to skirt the state's daily physical education requirements for another two years.
Board members voted earlier this week to submit a request for a two-year exemption from the state's required daily gym classes, according to a news release from the district.
Squeezing gym class in each day would take too much time away from academic subjects such as language arts and math, district officials said.
If Waukegan's request is granted, District 60 elementary school students would have 46 minutes of physical education every four days with supplementary activities worked into the school day through the end of the 2017-18 school year, according to the district's news release.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois was the first state in the nation to require daily gym. The state board says extra physical activity both improves students' health and helps them in the classroom, though it has also given exemptions to districts that say they're unable to meet the standard.
But the state changed the rules for granting waivers in 2008, saying it would allow each district a maximum of three more two-year passes.
District 60 is among just 5.5 percent of districts statewide still relying on waivers to avoid offering daily gym for all students, said Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matthew Vanover.
But that doesn't mean they're the only Lake County district not yet in compliance. Round Lake Area Schools Community Unit School District 116 used up its six years of waivers in 2014 but still doesn't have the space or staffing to give every student gym time every day, said Bill Johnston, assistant superintendent of business and operations.
District 116 did increase the number of minutes of gym time students get -- currently 30 minutes twice a week in elementary school, 81 minutes two or three days a week in middle school and daily in high school -- since exhausting their waivers, said district spokeswoman Heather Bennett.
But the district estimates it would take $500,000 to hire the eight extra staff members needed to offer daily gym in the elementary schools alone, Bennett said. And at some schools, the logistics of getting 500 to 750 students daily time in the gymnasium -- which at W.J. Murphy Elementary School doubles as the cafeteria -- make it "impossible," Bennett said.
District 116 spent much of the 2000s on the state's financial watch list, and academics suffered while they worked to get finances back in order, Johnston said.
"I don't think physical education has taken a back seat, but our focus has been on things to get student achievement up, and we've implemented as many different programs as we can afford to do that," he said.
Other Lake County school districts, including Grayslake Community High School District 127 and Woodland Community Consolidated School District 50 in Gurnee, said they've worked gym class into students' daily schedules.
Steve Thomas, District 50's assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, said space was an issue at his schools, too. About 10 years ago, when they heard the state planned to begin limiting waivers, they expanded a middle school gym, Thomas said.
"We could deal with the staffing piece, but we knew we needed to plan for enough space, especially in the winter," he said.
District 50 last received a waiver about seven years ago, and students now get 25 to 35 minutes of physical education per day, he said.
Now, Thomas said, they're working on a new change in state physical education standards called "enhanced P.E." that says gym class shouldn't just teach good sportsmanship and give kids a chance to run around but should also help them understand how the body responds to physical activity and the importance of fitness.
"It's definitely a change in the way we've done things," he said.
lzumbach@tribpub.com
