By Chris Langston

Sports Editor

Every single school year, many kids are overworked and stressed out because of the troubles of classes, extra curriculars, and sports taking up their entire day. This usually leaves kids with very little rest for the next day of the same tiring cycle. However, there is a solution. If more school districts would allow sports at the high school level to count as their physical education credit, these problems would be mostly solved.

With these stresses becoming more and more frequent in students’ daily lives, less and less time is becoming available throughout the busy schedule. If sports were to count as a physical education credit, more time would be freed up as a result of a more productive schedule throughout his or her high school career.  In the midst of the struggles that are involved in a student’s high school career, there are the stresses that every high school student can relate to, trying to combine their ideal class load with taking the mandatory credits such as physical education.

With students participating in a variety of different sports and athletic clubs, they are already developing more enhanced physical skills then you would normally find in your typical high school physical education credit. As well as games at the high school level, practices are typically much longer then a normal 50-minute physical education class, thus students in sports are getting the same amount, if not more, physical activity during the day.

If more school districts would count high school sports as a physical education credit, then that would allow more opportunities for students such as an earlier graduation to get into the real world as soon as possible and get started on a specific career path.

Another argument is that students not taking physical education will not get the proper education through sports that is “taught” during physical education courses. However, students will benefit more physically because the standards that are set in physical education courses are for the average student. Those involved in high school sports are typically more active than the average student, so the workout you will get from a physical education class will not enhance your physical fitness levels.

Therefore, if school sports could count as a physical education credit, much student related stress would be relieved due to a more productive schedule, and high school students will gain more freedoms through other classes they can take in place of physical education and more opportunities will be opened up.