A lawsuit was filed in October in San Francisco County Superior Court on behalf of plaintiffs Marc Babin, a parent, and Cal200, an organization he heads that advocates for elementary school physical education. Babin's children, now adults, went to school in the Alameda Unified School District, one of the defending districts, according to his Albany, Calif., attorney, Donald Driscoll.
"School districts have been routinely ignoring the law," Driscoll said. And the Los Angeles Unified School District, the state's largest, "has been a particular offender. They give lip service to the idea that P.E. is important. That just plain doesn't work. What that produces is kids who don't get enough exercise."
L.A. Unified, along with Palm Springs Unified and others, have asked teachers to show that they are meeting state requirements for physical education. The lesson plans typically outline schedules for instruction, activities and classes.
In addition to lunch and recess, schools must offer kindergarten through sixth-grade students 200 minutes of physical education instruction for every 10 days of class, as required in the state Education Code.
The teacher records could be compared to the information that school administrators previously submitted to the California Department of Education to verify the number of hours students had P.E., Driscoll said.
According to court documents, L.A. Unified determined the complaint had merit, but that the "allegations have already been rectified."
