SEQUIM — Fourteen-year-old Alli Cutting has a lot of stress to look forward to.
She’s in eighth grade, but she already knows how demanding high school can be.
She’s watched her older sister try to fit everything into her college-track schedule: intense academics, sports, music.
And though her sister was an after-school athlete, she had to take three semesters of physical education to graduate.
Alli’s parents, Wendy and William Cutting, were among those who pleaded with the Sequim School District Board of Directors on Monday night to waive at least one semester of the high school physical education requirement.
State law provides that P.E. courses may be waived upon written request of a parent if a student has a physical disability, religious reasons or is involved in “directed athletics or military science and tactics.”
But Sequim High School hasn’t granted such waivers, principal Shawn Langston told the School Board.
Instead, it has allowed students with rigorous course loads to complete independent P.E. study.
‘Zero hour’
In the future, Sequim High may also allow students to take care of the P.E. requirement during “zero hour,” a period that starts before the traditional school day.
But for parents like the Cuttings, that’s not a solution.
Their older daughter has been accepted to the University of Washington.
But as she strove to fit everything into her course schedule, “I worried about her sleep deprivation,” said Wendy. “I make her go to bed at 1 o’clock in the morning.”
Our teenagers are the “millennial generation,” the Cuttings were told at a UW orientation recently. That generation is “cooperative, competitive, and hard-working,” said William.
“And they’re sleep-deprived and have very little time for creative pursuits,” he added.