By: Johan Satorre
On Tuesday, March 26th, the Visalia Unified School District school board convened to review a potential policy change regarding marching band receiving PE credit. Every high school student in VUSD is required to take two years of PE to graduate. However, athletes are allowed to count two seasons of their sport as one year of PE.
For several months, students and parents have been lobbying the district to grant the fall season of marching band PE credit. They argue that due to the time commitment and physical effort they put forth, the class should be counted towards a student’s required PE credits.
Similar to the athletic PE waiver, the draft of the policy grants a semesters worth of PE credits to students who have completed one fall semester of marching band. However, the policy is more strict in comparison to the standard athletic waivers. Band students will have to receive at least a C in the fall semester of band. They will also have to pass 5 out of 6 of the physical tests during their freshman year. If they do not successfully pass it, they will not be allowed to waive the second year of PE. Color guard also has the same proposed requirements. Cheer leading was included as well, however, their requirements are different. For this, participates will be required to complete on full year of Cheer leading for it to be able to translate into one semester of PE credit.
The policy on Tuesday is an early draft and may not be what the final version will look like. Next week, there will be another board meeting on Tuesday, April 2nd, addressing the second read of the waiver.
Johan Satorre
Johan ('20), is the Opinion Editor for the Gigantea. He is a two year member of Redwood Journalism. He enjoys history and politics and is a contributor to the Government and Politics section.
Tags: band, cheerleading, colorguard, PE, redwood high school, rhs, school board, visalia ca, vusd
