If a student does three sports a school year, should they be required to take Personal Fitness? I am a current three-sport athlete and member of the junior class at BRHS. Being on three sports teams is very time-consuming, with a minimum of an hour and a half practice 5-6 days a week, up to 6-hour events, such as track meets, and sometimes 6 hours round trip on a bus. This shows how much time and energy three-sport athletes put into their sports. The school curriculum currently requires students to take Personal Fitness. I’m not arguing against Personal Fitness as the class itself, but for three-sport athletes, I think there could be a better alternative to taking Personal Fitness, such as the option to opt out of Personal Fitness or at least take an independent study.

I do not find it logical to require three-sport athletes to take Personal Fitness because the whole purpose of the class is to establish healthy habits for their future selves. All of the things taught in Personal Fitness are things I either already knew or learned from the sports I do. This makes things feel very redundant and my time could be spent better in a different class. I am not, however, arguing against the class as a whole. I think that learning about these things and building healthy, active habits are important, especially for kids who don’t do sports.

This is why I propose not making Personal Fitness a required class for three-sport athletes; it's just a repeat of things we learn from our sports teams. There is not a heavy amount of information covered, and some of it is already covered in Health class, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to move all of it to be covered in Health. Also, making it for three-sport athletes--as opposed to two--may help increase the size of our sports teams so that students who play two sports may consider adding another one to get out of taking Personal Fitness.

We as students do not have a lot of freedom in creating our schedule, especially as Freshmen. Personal Fitness is considered a freshman class; however, there are still students who cannot fit it into their schedule, because on top of the required classes they’re taking, they’re also taking an extra math class, for example. For three-sport athletes who don’t want to take Personal Fitness they could take an elective they want to take. In a survey I sent out to the students of BRHS 50% of 36 students who already do/would consider doing three sports with this policy change said they would use the opportunity to take an elective that interests them that they wouldn’t be able to take otherwise.

As a current junior, I’ve had so many classes I’ve taken and had to take that I have not taken a single elective. Not taking Personal Fitness would’ve allowed me to take a class that interested me my sophomore year, which I would’ve appreciated because of how heavy the courseload is for many sophomores, myself included.

Personal Fitness has an independent study option as well, which we aren’t told at all. If this was more known many ambitious students would be able to take an elective they want. In an interview I had with current Health and Personal Fitness teacher Mr. Dacus, he said he was worried some students would take advantage of this opportunity because it’s done on the students' own time, meaning they could lie on their work out logs. Not only is this an option, though, the independent study is already laid out and set in place. While not everyone would like taking a timelapse of them working out, it would be an easy solution. And while students with anxiety may not like this alternative, it is much better for them than the alternative of taking Personal Fitness and having to work out in front of their classmates.

What I am proposing is a policy that if a student participates in three sports a year that they meet the Personal Fitness requirement and do not need to take the class. This brings up the question “What does 'participate' mean?” We could make it so a student-athlete has to go to a predetermined number of practices, meets, and games in order for it to fulfill the Personal Fitness requirement. This would also make sure students are committed to their sport, having the additional benefit of making sure students are actively participating on their teams. Having this requirement would make sure students do not just say they are doing three sports to get out of taking Personal Fitness.