At the moment my school does require the middle school students to change for PE class but not into uniforms. Each year there seems to be a debate on whether they should change at all because of the 45-minute class period does not allow much time for physical activity. The more time they spend changing, the less time for activity. At the moment, any student not prepared with shorts and sneakers is sent to the library and given an unprepared mark in the book. Sadly, until they either increase the number of days of PE or add minutes to the class time, this will be a topic of debate for years to come in our school.

I teach at the High school level and we used to have a big problem with students being "unprepared" (or as you say not dressing out. Fortunately our school admin and board were very supportive when we attempted to address the situation. Now if a student is unprepared they get unprepared paperwork to complete during the class. This is usually a health or physical activity related article which they have to read and then answer a series of questions on. They also have to make up the class by coming to the school fitness center after school, and spending the same amount of minutes on a cardio machine (such as treadmill, bike, etc). If they do not make up the classes then they fail PE, and this can effect their graduation. I know you do not have this option at the middle school level, but we found the paperwork and make-up classes to be very successful, and now we barely have any students unprepared for class.

We require our students to dress every day for class. If they dont we require them to finsish a page of work from their "No Excuses PE" packet. Each student that doesnt participate has a packet on file. Every day they dont participate they work on their packet. The packets are a collections of articles and worksheets. They are required to finish one article each time they dont dress.

Scott, Do you have the packets made up ahead of time? What do you do with the unfinished packets at the end of the term? I like this idea. It puts a damper on the "habitually not prepared" offenders! ...Sue

we do have a stack in each of our gymnasiums. after "assigning" one to a student we just keep it on file in the PE office until the next time we need it!
Students only get credit for what they have finished, each time they miss they have an assignment to finish. If they get it done they get credit for completing whatever they finished.

Although we require all students to change for physical education, unfortunately that it not always the case. If and when a student does not change, they are required to fill out a non-participation form for that day. This form has 10 questions for students to answer while observing his/her physical education class. Students are also required to bring this completed form home for a parent/guardian to sign and return to class the following day. We ask students to have a parent/guardian sign it so they are aware that their child did not participate in class that day.