All high schools in the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD) allow their student athletes to take their respective sports in replacement of the district mandated Physical Education (PE) class, except for Oxford Academy. To follow suit and accommodate its student athletes, Oxford should allow students to replace their PE class with sports so students can see more flexibility with their athletic training, extracurriculars, and course workload.
In other AUHSD high schools, students who meet the physical activity and exercise criteria in sports practice simply report to their designated PE teacher to fulfill the course credit and curriculum. Furthermore, students who play sports in later seasons are able to experience the same system as the school simply switches their PE class with their sports replacement when the season begins.
However, unlike the other high schools, Oxford’s current compromise for student athletes is taking PE-Athletics, which is identical to regular PE classes except for being placed later on the student’s schedule. Although PE-Athletics aims to provide flexibility when students have to leave early for games, some athletes were placed in a fourth period PE-Athletics class for the 2024-2025 school year due to scheduling issues, limiting its effect for many student athletes.
On the district’s website, AUHSD’s PE curriculum guidelines state a short description of the class; students are expected to have around seven hours of physical activity per ten days. One finds that sports practice often fulfills the hours and physical exercise components completely.
According to OA Girls Varsity Volleyball head coach Allan Comerford, the team runs and does numerous drills for a full two hours or more on days they’re not playing games.
“There’s always a lot of constant movement, with running laps, shuffling, jumping, and the side-to-side movement that is needed in practice,” said Coach Comerford.
Coach Comerford also stated how during league, the volleyball team would practice up to 10 hours a week. When in season, student athletes often have around two hours of practice daily and are also expected to attend additional sessions for training and conditioning. The constant exercise completely fulfills the hours of physical activity required in the AUHSD PE curriculum.
Replacing students’ PE classes with their sports practices would not only fulfill all their physical education standards but also allow them to more efficiently manage their time and catch up on homework, studying, or even training or conditioning for their sport, similarly to other AUHSD schools.
Some may say that practice and training for just one specific high school sport wouldn’t be sufficient to meet the standards of the PE classes that offer more diverse activities with numerous different sports. However, the varying drills, training, and conditioning that is done within one sport is similar to what regular PE classes do and teaches the skills taught in PE, such as teamwork and persistence. Practice during sports also teaches students the various motor skills covered in PE. These drills done during practice also help the students to stay physically fit and actively learn and grow in fitness skills.
Oxford students in general already deal with a heavier course load than other high schools. When having to attend PE classes and practice after school, they are deprived of time to balance academics with other extracurriculars. There is no rational reason Oxford should continue with their system of PE-Athletics when all other high schools in AUHSD allow their students to replace their PE classes with sports, meeting PE standards. Through the implementation of the system across all high schools in the district, the benefits are clear; there should be no hesitation in modifying Oxford student athletes’ schedule and replacing their PE class for sports and training.
