I can only dream of what it would be like to teach all of my elementary students physical education on a daily basis. I see my students students once a week for forty minutes. The one school I travel to has a different schedule and I see the preschoolers once a week for thirty minutes and the kindergarteners twice a week for thirty minutes each time. With three schools and approximately 575 students, I cannot get to everyone even twice a week. We have two other elementary schools and one physical educator to cover them. I am located in Kenton, Ohio and we have had two failed levies for a new campus elementary school that would do away with our five elementary schools. I don't foresee anything getting better. We're hoping that we get an operating levy passed next spring to avoid across the board cuts that could impact all of the staff.

No, I teach in OH and my district has 30 minutes of PE at the elementary level twice a week. To add fuel to the fire, our district is in a $30 million deficit and originally announced that all elementary P.E., Music and Art Specialists were included in the proposed budget cuts! The classroom teachers would teach the students their specials and the students would leave 30 minutes each day before the teachers. Our union was outraged and they finally took us off the list to be cut. So for now we are safe pending a school levy.

I am so glad that your school district decided not to cut the specialists from teaching their content areas. Classroom teachers have not been trained to teach specials to the extent that we have. It is upsetting to see that districts are considering cutting essential teaching positions!

I think it is very rare. PE should be happening every day for elementary students, however, in IL they can add up the number of minutes students are getting only twice a week and then say that this is acceptable. Students need to be moving, especially when 1 in 3 people are obese or overweight!

In New York, we are mandated that student K-3 have PE everyday, this is met by few if any schools. There are also many ways to manipulate that as you have stated. For grades 4-6, students are supposed to receive Physical Education 3 times a week for a total of 120 minutes. This is rare again for schools to meet and many ways to manipulate the system.

There has been a huge issue with New York lately because many schools were audited by the state for PE. The sad part is that only one school out of the hundreds that were audited that passed. The audit looked at many things, but the biggest problem was schools not meeting the mandated time.

Due to the audit, many schools need to make up the time mandate they are not meeting and have done so in various ways (recess does not count). Our school extended our classes to one hour classes, twice a week (I teach 3-5). This does not meet the mandate for number of times, but does for time. Other schools (we did this last year) had the school exercise together at one time. As long as the activity was directed by a PE teacher, it could count as PE time.

I think everyday elementary PE would be great, but I do not that it will happen any time soon. You are lucky to have that, I think that is helps teach kids the importance of physical activity everyday.

I have taught elementary PE in two different school buildings for 12 years. For the first few years, the students had PE 3 times per cycle. Since the district has begun a new Spanish curriculum, 1 day was taken away from all specials, reducing PE class meetings to 2 times per cycle. It is awesome that you live in a state that is attempting, at least in theory, to require daily PE for all students.

Our students are suppose to have PE daily up to 3rd grade for a total of 120 mintues a week. However it seems with school districts taking a hit in state aid this manadte is not being meet. Currently my students receive PE 2x a week for 45 mintues half the year and 3x a week for 45 mintues the other half!!

Our school district is down to the minimum time limits. K-is 30 minutes once a week. 1-5 has P.E. for 30 minutes 2x a week! It is almost impossible to teach the state curriculum.

This is my 22nd year teaching elementary Physical Education and I have never had the students for more than 2x per week. This year I have K for 30 minutes once a week and grades 1-4 35 minutes 2x per week. Some days I have 10 classes that I will run through and have class from 8:35-3:15 with a 1/2 hour lunch and a 1/2 hour plan. Classes are back to back so there is little time in between to prepare for the next class.It can get hectic but I prefer to see them like this than 1x per week like it used to be. That was a total of 36 times per year. Pretty tough getting anything accomplished.

Ken,

I taught PE in the elementary for nine years and jsut accepted a middle school position in the same district. While in the elementary i had the same students once every day for 50 minutes for 9 weeks. After that, they went to art for nine weeks, then music and so on. I can't imagine teaching like you are. I have many PE teachers i know in the area who have the same schedule as you do. Hang in there and talk to the principal, school board about changing this. It is the only wey to go!

Hi
I teach elementary on Long Island, NY. We do not have PE everyday, we at the elementary level teach our students 2x a week for 40mins per class. Our students do not have to change clothes so we can every minute in. Our schedules vary as some teach single classes and others teach double classes. Sometimes the schedules work out so that the same two classes come together as doubles which makes planning easier but there are times when they don't and one class will be ahead or behind the other in the unit. Our students do get 20 minutes of recess everyday (unless bad weather. We try to incorporate physical activity movements in their classrooms by providing the classroom teachers websites and activities.