Imagine a student who plays basketball, which consumes at least an hour and a half of their day, six days a week, for four months of the school year. Balancing the intense workload of the basketball team with completing their homework every night dissolves their free time. Now imagine a student who takes a 50-minute gym class during the school day. With no other outside commitments, this student gets to come home right after school, has ample time to complete their homework, and doesn’t deal with the time suck of playing a sport.

Despite the discrepancies between these two days, both of these students get the same amount of gym credits.

Students earn credits through playing sports or taking quarter-long gym classes that count for .25 credits. Up until the start of the 2023-24 school year, playing basketball and swimming for the school team counted for .5 credits, while other school sports counted for .25 credits; currently, every sport counts for .25 credits. Students must meet the requirement of two full credits to graduate, with one of those credits coming from the mandatory freshman year wellness class.

If the goal of the PE credit system is to encourage students to partake in physical activity, then why should a two-month-long class and a four-month-long season be weighted the same?

Even if there were no difference in physical exertion, the total time that an athlete spends playing their sport for a school team isn’t even comparable to the total time spent in a gym class. In fact, a player on the basketball team will spend 125 hours per season at a minimum playing basketball, while a student in a gym class will spend about 25 hours in their class. The difference in hours committed is absurd: How can two activities get the same amount of credit if one requires five times the time commitment?

Because of this disparity, we need a change; however, returning to the old system is not the solution. In the old system, winter sports received more credit than fall and spring sports, even though some spring teams could play a longer season than winter teams if they advanced far enough in the playoffs.

But even if some sports seasons are longer than others, why shouldn’t every sport get .5 credits? There is no world in which a gym class comes even remotely close to the intensity of a sport, and the credit system should reflect that while also incentivizing students to play sports. This solution is not intended to diminish the value of a gym class; instead, it balances the scales between extracurricular sports and gym classes.

To make the system fair for athletes, the Athletic Department should raise the credit requirement from two to 2.5, awarding .5 credits per sports season and a .25 credit per gym class. The stress of a dedicated athlete is already enough. By allowing students to fulfill their credits through a single sport, this change can have a significant impact on students’ mental health and wellbeing.

While some may point out that this change might lead to even more uncommitted students signing up for sports just for the credit, they will likely get placed on JV instead of varsity, which won’t lower the quality of the more competitive team.

This change would be simple and seamless. The Athletic Department needs to start awarding student-athletes the credit they deserve.