Personalized Play: A new physical education class, Personalized PE, began at East this year

“Hey Grace, does your back hurt from carrying your team?”

A smile immediately shot over sophomore Grace Rayfield’s face as everyone in her Personalized Physical Education class gathered around her and started smiling and laughing, declaring her team the winner.

Two teams separated by a volleyball net: Team Grace and Team David. The game of beach-ball volleyball had begun.

Laughter and comments like “Great serve!” echoed the court as the group began playing. Grace served the beach-ball over the net with a wide grin across her face. As the ball flew to the other side of the court, sophomore David Chavez Cabello struck it back over, resulting in multiple “Yay David! Great hit!” comments from the student mentors around him. 

This was the class — constant positivity and encouragement. A smaller and more engaging environment for students with special needs.

After two years of Physical Education and Health teacher Maggie Archer and Special Education teacher Sarah Maas requesting the new class, it was finally accepted this year by the district.

“To get any class approved it’s always a process,” Archer said. “When you are trying to combine  two big fields — P.E. and special education — you need to make sure all your T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted and that we follow all the rules that are in place.”

Once the class was approved, Archer and Maas hit the ground running — the first step was finding student mentors. 

They chose nine students to help with the class after consulting with other coaches and teachers in the P.E. department, to find students who work well with others. The perfect candidates for the job were seniors, Jack Kessler, Joey Hoffman, Wes Lyerly and juniors Emmy Barrett, Caroline Martucci, Reggie Ingram, Kate Kounkel, Rachel Condon and Zane Laing.

“When we were signing up for classes this year, that was when I first heard about the new Personalized P.E. class,” Barrett said. “So far it’s been fun to see some of the kids come out of their shells, even if they’re just dancing when the music comes on.”

After the first few weeks of school, the class started gearing into motion. Archer starts class every day by turning on music as everyone enters the gym. Once the music stops, the class heads to the middle of the gym and forms a circle for warm-up. Both the students and the mentors get to lead their own stretch for 10 seconds before starting an activity to get their heart rates up, like a tic-tac-toe relay — a game where students run to a cluster of hula hoops, place rubber spot markers down and attempt to get three in a row before the other team. Finally, they move into a game or a skill set, like volleying beach-balls and working on spatial awareness. 

“One student — David — came to me on the first day saying how excited he was to exercise, three days in he came to me saying how sore his legs were,” Kessler said. “It was cool to see his mindset and for him to realize how good it is to actually exercise and to feel his body getting stronger.”

The new Personalized P.E. class is another option to choose from to complete the required P.E. graduation credit. According to Archer, she has always hoped for a P.E. class that could work for all students — by offering this new class, she believes that East is allowing her goal to be attainable. 

“There’s always a place for students in P.E. regardless of what it looks like,” Archer said. “There should be a place for everyone to fit in.”