In the 2014-2015 school year, over 7 million students participated in a school sanctioned sport across the United States of America. While this number seems high, it only increases throughout the years as more sport choices are offered. Student athletes across the country commit months to participating in these sports. While in the midst of the season, they devote their evenings after school and sometimes their Saturdays to the sport of their choice. Along with hours of practices, games, and tournaments, students are also expected to perform well in school.

Between core classes and required electives, some student athletes cannot find the availability in their schedules to take a study hall or other class which provides them with a time to complete school work or study. Because students cannot work for the hours necessary to complete assignments on time, stress increases and motivation decreases.

Physical education classes are a requirement at several high schools and occupy class periods in which students could be taking a study hall or class alike. Air Academy High School, much like most other American high schools, requires three physical education credits to graduate. Physical education classes are an excellent way to promote a healthy lifestyle for students who aren’t enrolled in an athletic event, but for student athletes, they seem very unnecessary.

An alternative for student athletes being required to take 3 P.E. courses would be to consider school sports as a credit. This change would allow student athletes to complete classes that are necessary or take a study hall which could lower the amount of time they spend doing homework and increase their grades.

“I definitely think that athletics should be counted as P.E. credits because if you think about all that extra time that athletes put in, whether it’s practice or weekends, that’s a lot of extra time, and then they could be using that extra class period as getting more credits out of the way or study hall,” says Kristen Sciacca, Air Academy head volleyball coach, in support of school sports being considered credits for physical education.

At Air Academy, school sports are not considered a physical education credit. In the instance that they were, points of conflict would arise. For one, would it be fair that sports of all levels are considered a credit? Sometimes, a player of a Varsity sport will devote more time and effort than a JV or C-Squad player. Also, one sport may be more taxing than another. This brings up the subject of which sports at which levels should be considered for a P.E. credit.

Varsity girls tennis player, Cori Campbell, voices her opinion: “Only varsity should be considered because I think there’s a lot more time put in and more hard work.”

While varsity teams generally commit more time and effort, this is not accurate in some cases. If school sports were to be counted as a credit, consideration about various topics would have to be made, and several guidelines would have to exist. A subject as such discussed would take many steps to incorporate into a school but the benefits of it should be considered, such as the opportunity for more sport participation and increased performance in school. In our own school of Air Academy, a movement to consider school sports as credits could be the step we need to take to prepare ourselves for the future.