Opinion by Zach Kolker

Student athletes have it rough here at Mount Vernon High School. Athletes who have PE the same semester as their sport have to work at twice or more a day. The many sports that are offered here have practice after school for two or more hours every day. That’s more time at practice than Performance PE on a block scheduled day.

For athletes that have this intense PE class they have a set lifting workout they have to do. Because they do these lifts in class they are allowed to skip lifting for practice. This is time they could easily be doing at practice but they do it in class. Their time could be spent much better in an academic class rather than a physical education course.

Student athletes could also take a study hall when they would have a PE class. This would allow them to catch up on work and would make up for time that they spend at practice. They could also take a nap during this free hour which would help them perform better at practice which in turn would help them in competition.

This year we have also had a problem with scheduling with early bird Performance PE. Some people who have signed up to take it have not been able to due to an excess amount of people in this class. Because of this some students had to take an elective out of their schedules to be able to take a PE class.

This is why I propose that we award a physical education credit to anyone who is in a sport that has five hours of practice outside of school each week. This would allow student athletes to gain more credits towards graduation and make room for more people in the higher performing PE classes.