By Caroline Foley ’21
There have been big changes in the Beverly Public School system this year, as hybrid and virtual models replace a normal school day. However, another change has crept under the radar for the Beverly Students. While it won’t matter to most people, to the incoming sophomores, freshmen, and grades below that, it could influence their entire high school experience. For the Class of 2023 and on, students must take a wellness class every year.
Gym class has long been the bane of many high school students’ existence. Most of the time, students take multiple gym classes as an underclassmen so by the time they are a junior or senior, they’ll be done for good. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. In the past, students had to take ten credits worth of wellness classes in whatever year they would like. The new wellness credit model consists of 5 credits freshman year and 2.5 credits each year after that. This may seem minor, or silly to make a big deal about, but for some students, it’s a big inconvenience.
Junior and senior year, students have a lot of freedom over their schedule, and they are able to take classes that they are interested in or are related to a potential college major. It’s extremely helpful to many upperclassmen to have an extra block to take a class they are interested in. Also, some students participate in high school sports, sometimes year-round, and they still must take the same amount of wellness credits as a student who never leaves their house.
Sophomore Bella Jimenez, like many other underclassmen, has been affected by the change in wellness requirements. When she made her freshman schedule at the end of 8th grade, she had no idea about the new wellness requirements she would have to follow. She was told during her freshman year about them. She explains that a friend of hers planned to take all her wellness classes as early as possible. “All of her extra classes were gym classes,” Jimenez explained. “If you ask me, that is not fair to students who signed up for classes in 8th grade unknowing of the new curriculum.”
She believes the new requirements should have begun to take effect with the class below hers, the class of 2024, so they would know while making their schedules about the requirements. Now, students in Jimenez’s grade have to take more gym credits than necessary due to taking multiple classes freshman year, and can’t take academically-important classes instead.
These requirements seem to be out of the school’s control, as they were given to the school by the state. However, perhaps the timing could have been better. It is unfortunate that the class of 2023 is going to miss out on academic opportunities because they were not informed about the requirements beforehand. Jimenez suggests that “if the school was concerned about students’ health, they should require every student to either play an after school sport or workout in the fitness room after school. I believe that would be a great way to give students an opportunity to have more freedom around education but a great way to get gym credits.”
