Ninth graders need summer gym class

Summer gym is offered to all high school students except for freshmen.  Freshmen need this option for several reasons.  The school district should keep the idea of ninth graders being freshmen in their minds.  Ninth grade is the start of a student’s high school record, freshmen should be allowed to have the same privileges as the rest of the high school.

First, this option would allow students to enroll into another elective they want to take, but the school district doesn’t offer them any way of participating in this kind of activity. Some students are not allowed to choose electives that they want to take because these students have to take the Algebra I intervention class.  Taking this elective takes up one semester’s worth of space on a student’s schedule. One semester is equal to two marking periods and one half of a school year.  Therefore, this elective would equal the same time as taking physical education or Sociology of American sports since they are both one semester long.

For example, if a student wanted to take science technology and society but failed the Keystone that elective could be taken away and replaced with the intervention elective.  If summer gym was available to incoming ninth graders, this issue would not be present. The student would be able to take both of these electives.

Some students at the junior high do not enjoy participating in physical education.  Students could say they think it is unnecessary to take gym during the school year and want to get physical education over with so they don’t have to take it in school.

Another reason for incoming ninth graders to be able to take summer gym is so they have something to do at the beginning of the summer.  Some students in the junior high have nothing to do in the summer. These students may only be sitting in their houses doing nothing all summer unless they make plans with their friends or go on vacation with their families. Introducing a summer gym program to incoming ninth graders in the junior high would give these students something to do.  The same thing goes for any other student who will be going into ninth grade in the following years.

Some students at the junior high do not enjoy participating in physical education.  Students could say they think it is unnecessary to take gym during the school year and want to get physical education over with so they don’t have to take it in school.

There can also be two ways the program will work.

One way can be for the incoming ninth graders to be paired up with the high school students.  They will participate in a summer gym program with the tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders. The summer gym program with the high school includes lifting weights and doing other athletic activities.  Some would consider this program to be hard and unnecessary while others would say it is a great opportunity for students to pair up with each other and work together to complete the program.

The second way the program could work is to set up a separate group that specifically deals with ninth graders. Because these incoming ninth graders are not in the actual high school yet, they could have the option to do many different activities.  This is because the high school participates in other activities the junior high does not. In the junior high, students participate in football, basketball, badminton, hockey and other sports.  Playing some of these games in a rotation for two weeks could be what the incoming ninth graders will do in the summer gym program.

Summer gym for incoming ninth grader could be a very good idea for the students.  The students will be very thankful for the school if this goes into effect.