When Morgen Rosenkrantz took the job at her children’s school to teach PE rotations for all grades, she had no experience except that she was a mom who enjoyed being physically active. She had to build the PE program at Antelope Canyon Elementary from scratch and on her own. She searched through online resources, registered for national fitness programs and connected with other PE teachers to create a curriculum that would meet state PE standards and engage students.

“There’s a lot more that goes into it than just having kids come into the gym and scream their heads off for 40 minutes,”
Rosenkrantz said.

PE is a required subject in both elementary and secondary schools. While secondary schools exclusively hire certified teachers who follow a specific curriculum, elementary school PE programs have fewer requirements.

Tricia Rojas, Health and PE specialist for Jordan School District, said there is no specific amount of hours or frequency requirements for elementary PE classes. The length and frequency of PE classes are determined by the size of the school, the staff budget and the number of other class rotations in the schedule. She said administrators are realizing the importance of movement, and in addition to PE rotations, many are trying to incorporate more movement in the classroom or in afterschool programs.

Rojas believes movement is an important part of a student’s physical, emotional and mental health and that it directly affects students’ academic performance.

“Movement is important,” Rojas said. “I think the cell phone and how much time kids spend in front of the screens, they’re seeing that affect behavior, and I think they’re seeing that they need to replace that with something that actually improves their academics. And so movement is just a no-brainer. We’ve been hearing it. We don’t need any more research. The research has been there, and I think it’s just evident in our classrooms now that the kids need to move.”

Rojas provides monthly training for all PE teachers in the district and prioritizes opportunities to observe each other so that students get the best PE experience. Rosenkrantz said it was the ideas she got from other PE teachers at a monthly training that helped her understand and address the challenges she had meeting the needs of her all-day kindergarten students. 

“It was just nice to hear from other PE teachers,” she said. “There were a couple of the teachers that had some amazing ideas last year, and so that was super, super helpful.”

This year, Rojas developed an elementary PE curriculum, with specific lessons and activities that meet the state PE standards. She saw the need for a curriculum because only five of the 40 elementary school PE teachers in Jordan District are certified teachers. Most are parents, with no formal training in PE or teaching, hired for a classroom assistant position and asked to run the school’s PE program. Some receive direction from the certified classroom teachers, but most are on their own to develop and run the PE program.

“Ideally, we would have a certified team teacher in every elementary, and I would love to move toward that, but there are some barriers that keep us from being able to do that,” Rojas said. Budget for, and availability of, certified PE teachers are two main barriers.

Rojas developed the curriculum with the input of the five certified PE teachers and Rosenkrantz, who has impressed her colleagues with the amount of effort she has invested into her successful program. Rojas said the curriculum has been a game-changing resource for many PE teachers who needed more support, but the best PE teachers, certified or not, are still those who put extra effort and enthusiasm into their programs, which motivates kids to
enjoy moving. λ