School Compliance to a Physical Education Lawsuit Settlement

Autor/inn/en	Kahan, David; McKenzie, Thomas L.
Titel	School Compliance to a Physical Education Lawsuit Settlement
Quelle	In: Physical Educator, 76 (2019) 1, S.301-304 (4 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2160-1682
Schlagwörter	Compliance (Legal); Physical Education; Court Litigation; Elementary Schools; State Legislation; Educational Legislation; School Schedules; School Law; California + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Körpererziehung; Sportunterricht; Rechtsstreit; Elementary school; Grundschule; Volksschule; Landesrecht; Bildungsrecht; Schulgesetz; Schulzeiteinteilung; Law concerning schools; Schulrecht; Kalifornien
Abstract	The elementary school years are a particularly crucial time for children to engage in quality physical education (PE). Increasing the proportion of elementary schools that require daily PE is a Healthy People 2020 objective. Concerns over deficiencies in the quantity and quality of PE in California, especially in elementary schools, have been voiced for decades. For example, 48% of California elementary schools have been found to not comply with the state PE time requirements of 200 PE min/10 days (California Education Code § 51210.7) and direct observation of lessons showed teachers were providing PE an average of only 30 min/week (SDSU, 2007). California schools at that time were monitored for compliance to PE requirements only every 4 years, and schools meeting academic goals could be exempted from PE monitoring. Meanwhile, the consequences for being out of compliance were minimal, as the school had only to submit a written plan for improvement (SDSU, 2007). This situation began to change in 2010 when a California appellate court ruled in favor of a plaintiff who sought the enforcement of the state PE time requirements for his third-grade son who was receiving less PE (i.e., 80 fewer min/10 days) than the amount stipulated by law. The authors of this article examined the websites of 860 elementary schools (Grades 1 to 6)--proportionately randomly sampled from 1,208 schools within 37 school districts--between March and June 2018, a time that corresponded to the final semester that schools were required to collect and disseminate PE minute data pursuant to the settlement agreement. PE schedules were searched and assessed websites for any additional verbiage about the frequency and duration of PE when a schedule was not posted. Overall, 92 schools (10.7%) posted PE schedules on their website and an additional 14 schools provided weekly PE lesson frequency (n = 9, 1.0%) or lesson duration (n = 5, 0.6%) without providing a specific schedule. In particular, only 1.6% of the targeted schools in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school district in the United States, posted a PE schedule. Nearly all schools across the United States now have websites that serve as "public windows" for providing up-to-date information on school goals and programs. A follow-up study in these same school districts and schools could determine long-term compliance to state statutory PE laws in the absence of litigation. Parents, physical educators, and community stakeholders interested in schools providing quality PE should examine their state's education codes for language mandating PE minutes and determine whether they are being provided in accordance with state law. If not--and if informal negotiations with school and district administrators do not resolve a PE time deficiency--there is legal precedent for utilizing litigation to ensure PE is provided as specified by law. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01