ODE gets involved in student physical fitness

By Patty Rice Groth -

Inquirer Cor­re­spon­dent -

Galion City School Dis­trict direc­tor of cur­ricu­lum Dr. Sandy Pow­ell has pre­sented the Board of Edu­ca­tion with infor­ma­tion regard­ing new stu­dent assess­ments require­ments com­ing from the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion in the wake of approval of Sen­ate Bill 210 (signed into law in June of 2010). Start­ing in the 2012–2013 school year, school dis­tricts in Ohio are required to assure their phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum aligns with assess­ment cri­te­ria set by the state. Unlike the Ohio Grad­u­a­tion Test results, how­ever, the phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion assess­ments will be pro­vided by local teach­ers in the class­rooms and gym­na­si­ums. Results of the assess­ments will be included on each Ohio school district’s report card start­ing fol­low­ing this next school year. Data will be reported to the state by school, not indi­vid­ual stu­dent, and ODE indi­cates high assess­ment scores are “not a high-stakes achieve­ment test.”

Respond­ing to recog­ni­tion of a national trend toward obe­sity and dia­betes in America’s youth, the require­ments of Sen­ate Bill 210 seek to change the trend over the next 10 years. Assess­ments will be per­formed on stu­dents in all grades, from kinder­garten through 12th grade, although all stu­dents will not be assessed every year. Grades are grouped kinder­garten through 2nd grade, 3rd through 5th grade, 6th through 8th grade, and 9th through 12th grade.

The Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion Aca­d­e­mic Con­tent Stan­dards include four components:

- stu­dent suc­cess in meet­ing bench­marks con­tained in the standards;

- com­pli­ance with local well­ness policy;

- col­lec­tion of Body Mass Index data; and

- par­tic­i­pa­tion in 30 min­utes per day of phys­i­cal activ­ity through opt-in programs.

Since Galion’s school dis­trict has elim­i­nated the school nurse posi­tion, some arrange­ment will have to be made for a qual­i­fied per­son to con­duct and col­lect BMI data. Cur­rently, Crest­line schools con­tract with the Galion Depart­ment of Health for school nurse ser­vices; per­haps Galion will do some­thing sim­i­lar. That is yet to be determined.

Pow­ell explained ODE has sep­a­rated grades into “bands” of grades. Each year, one grade in the band will be assessed against a set of stan­dards appro­pri­ate for those grades. ODE has defined six stan­dards to be assessed: motor skills and move­ment pat­terns, knowl­edge of move­ment con­cepts, prin­ci­ples, strate­gies and tac­tics, health-enhancing level of fit­ness, per­sonal and social behav­ior, val­ues phys­i­cal activ­ity, and finally, par­tic­i­pates in phys­i­cal activity.

In antic­i­pa­tion of these reg­u­la­tions, Pow­ell reported she and the district’s phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion instruc­tors had already begun work­ing to align cur­ricu­lum with assess­ment stan­dards. The cur­ricu­lum will be adjusted as needed in order for stu­dents to achieve pos­i­tive results for cardio-respiratory health, mus­cu­lar strength and endurance and upper body strength and endurance, abdom­i­nal mus­cu­lar strength and endurance, and flexibility.

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Mar 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.