Less basketball, more dancing in South Fayette gym curriculum
South Fayette is updating its health and physical education curriculum to shift the focus away from traditional sports to movement and wellness.
Assistant superintendent David Deramo and Stephanie DeLuca, coordinator of curriculum, innovation and technology coordinator, presented to the school board in May the changes that will be implemented next school year.
“Right now our P.E. and health classes are pretty traditional in nature. You might see students playing basketball for a number of weeks and then playing table tennis for a number of weeks,” DeLuca said. “The overall goal is to provide a more integrated experience for students so they’re not experiencing one isolated event or sport but really learning how to live a healthy, fit lifestyle from now until forever.”
Deramo said sports won’t disappear from the curriculum, but that the update gives students more choices.
“There will still be sports played,” he said. “However, instead of one individual sport, there is an option or a menu of various sports that incorporate a similar skill set, but with different opportunities or choices for students.”
Board member Leonard Fornella questioned if the new curriculum was moving away from sports completely.
“I don’t want to see it taken out completely where kids don’t get that outlet,” Fornella said.
“I actually think the intent of this is for kids to be more active more of the time and give more students an option to find the thing that they’re passionate about,” DeLuca said. “So when they get into their regular life, they know what they can do for fitness. We still have basketball and those other options, but for kids who don’t gravitate to those things, they’re able to have something they can practice too.”
Deramo and DeLuca, along with the entire health and P.E. staff at South Fayette, spent the last two years developing the curriculum, which is aligned with state standards and standards from the Society of Health and Physical Educators of America standards. The group was also in contact with the Arts Education Collaborative to help integrate dancing and movement-specific lessons.
“Everything in this document was something that was carefully put there, debated with the entire team,” DeLuca said. “It wasn’t just thrown in there, and we worked really hard that we had the resources to support it and the research to back it.”
Deramo said the health and P.E. curriculum, like all curricula at South Fayette, is a “living document.”
“A curriculum is never set in stone,” he said. “Teachers have the ability to test out, especially when it’s new or revised, what is best for the kids. There may be some tweaking or minor adjustments made.”
DeLuca added that the curriculum also adds in mindfulness training and integrating exercises from other cultures as a way to teach students.
“There are different avenues for different people, and we want to help kids find what is going to be their fit so they can be healthy,” she said.
Superintendent Ken Lockette said he’s pleased with the changes to the curriculum.
“I like the incorporation of mindfulness and wellness and lifelong fitness and not your ‘rolling out the ball’ kind of curriculum that has been traditional in the past,” he said.