The Physical Education Department will be changing the P.E. requirements for the 2022-2023 school year by requiring all students to complete 22 hours of P.E. a semester to graduate. This requirement cannot be fulfilled through sports or out-of-school exercise, but rather only through athletics conditioning and community P.E. activities.
The current policy requires students to complete a semester each of Health 9, Emergency Preparedness and Water Safety and Health and Wellness in 11th grade, along with one other P.E. class to fulfill the four P.E. credits required to graduate. Classes that warrant a credit are Yoga, Athletic Performance and Mustang Power Hour. The hours can be fulfilled through both P.E. electives, and new fitness classes offered through Head of Sports Performance Tyler Wilde, Water Polo and Varsity Head Coach Adam Roth, Athletics Coordinator Nicole Broulliard and Physical Education Instructor Christine Burke for the coming year. Students will have the opportunity to come in and do a guided workout with these instructors during their flexes, lunches, and free periods. There are also alternative, less structured ways to reach the hour goal.
“We’re also going to do more comprehensive community stuff,” Wilde said. “On community days, we might offer activities like inner tube water polo at the pool, and you can do that for hours. We’re trying to help build the community and find ways to work out together that aren’t just taking a class.”
Health classes will still be required to graduate, however, they will not be counted towards the 22 hour goal. In the Lower School, students will continue to be required to take one quarter of Health in both 7th and 8th grades. 9th-grade students have to take a semester of Health 9. Wilde has been incorporating a movement day into Health 9 each week, but next year the class will solely be instructional learning. Currently, Health and Wellness 11 includes both traditional Health curriculum and self-defense. The purpose of these changes is to make students’ lives easier by seamlessly incorporating working out into their daily lives and adding flexibility to the ways students can work out and receive credit. By creating the 22-hour goal, as opposed to the credits system, the athletics department is allowing students who have many extracurricular activities, and may not be able to make it to after-school workouts, to add fitness into their free time.
“I like the changes because having guided P.E. classes during my free time will motivate me to get in the gym more often when I don’t feel like doing homework,” Maeve ‘22 said.
However, for some students, the hour requirement impedes their time for academic coursework.
“As someone who doesn’t play any sports, I don’t want to spend my time at Marlborough taking a PE class, instead I want to take advantage of the academic and elective classes the school offers,” Maya ‘24 said.
