On Oct 8, the MCPS Board of Education officially passed a new legislation that states if students participate in an extracurricular sport, they will receive a semester credit (0.5 credit) of PE, meaning student athletes only have to take one semester of gym, instead of a full year. The legislation will be brought to the superintendent at the next board meeting in Feb. 2020, where the board will consider options for the legislation’s implementation. If it is passed, the legislation will be implemented immediately. 

This legislation has been a long time coming, as for many years now, MCPS students have complained about their graduation requirements, specifically for gym class. The county requires students to have a full credit of gym (two semesters) to graduate. Students have had issues with this because they don’t have room in their schedules to take classes that they feel are more important to take before college. The students that are especially angry about this are students that already get their daily exercise in an extracurricular sport after school. For those students, things may be changing very soon. 

Junior TJ Kovacs believes that the legislation will be beneficial for him and many others. 

“I like [the legislation]. I haven’t taken gym yet, so the legislation would reduce my requirement to a semester, and that would let me take some other classes in my senior year as well.” Kovacs said. 

Students are not the only ones that have opinions on this. Many teachers and parents have strong opinions as well. According to an article on Fox 5 DC, parents believe that the legislation should not be passed, as they believe gym teaches students nutrition, and lifelong health benefits that sports simply don’t give them. 

Many gym teachers, on the other hand, have surprisingly split opinions. Mrs. Laurie Wohnhas, a gym teacher at Poolesville, was one of them.

“I think that it could affect jobs, and I don’t want anybody to lose their job. I also think it could give kids an opportunity to take other classes possibly that they would want to take, so I’m kind of on the fence. I see both sides.”

Regardless of opinions, this legislation would not be possible without the Student Member of the Board (SMOB), Nate Tinbite. Tinbite felt inspired to propose this legislation after struggling with fitting tougher classes into his schedule because he was required to take gym. 

With the passing of this legislation, big changes could be arriving in future for MCPS, and students believe that once this is implemented, the county will not look back on its old ways.

“I think that some sort of physical activity should be a requirement, and hopefully will always be a requirement because that’s just an important aspect of life, but I think that once this legislation goes through and is implemented, I think that is a fine way for it to be and I think it could remain that way for the foreseeable future.” Kovacs said.