Response to Nick O's Idea

I believe that gym class should not be mandatory for those who participate in a school sport. The main purpose of wellness class is to stay physically active. This is obviously already occurring for those who are athletes. Gym class just provides an opportunity for athletes to get hurt and miss out on their season. If gym wasn’t mandatory, the athletes could use the wellness slot to take another academic class that they are interested in. There are so many benefits to this. It allows the athlete to explore other areas of academics that they might be interested in. The chance to take a certain class could even alter the person’s choice of college major. I would understand if the school district still required the athletes to study the classroom part of wellness and be exempt from the gym portion. The students have been learning almost the same wellness information since seventh grade. It would not be a great expenditure for the athletes to study this on their own time briefly.