Illinois School Code 105 ILCS 5/27-6 requires students in kindergarten through grade 12 to participate in physical education for at least three days per five-day week. Urbana School District is not able to meet the 3-day PE requirement for elementary due to the following:
- Not enough time in the school day to support all elementary grade levels getting three days of PE without lengthening the school day
- Maximizing the instructional time in the daily schedule to support core subject areas
- 120 minutes/day for CKLA/Caminos ELA
- 60 minutes for Illustrative Math
- 30 minutes for SEL (social-emotional learning curriculum)
- Addition of Enrichment/Intervention built into the daily schedule
- The required instructional minutes and include 30 minutes of unstructured recess time
- Not enough PE teachers and days in the week to support three days of PE for each grade level (K-5). Many of our buildings have three strands of each class and some have four.
- Not enough space in each building to hold 3 PE classes at the same time
Holding PE two days a week allows the district to focus on increasing student achievement in reading and math. We are not taking away any PE time. Urbana has always had PE twice a week. Many other school districts also don't have the time and space to provide PE three days a week. This isn't an Urbana specific issue.
We do provide our students multiple ways to move throughout the day through engagement in our instructional activities. Our CKLA curriculum has engagement built into the instruction. For example, they have 'wiggle cards' and move around the room to create words. They act out vocabulary, they do red light/green light.
Q: Do teachers have flex time in the schedule at all?
A: We really want them to stick to the instructional minutes. However, they do have time to embed special events or additional learning into their instruction.(i.e. learning about Hispanic Heritage Month, Women's History Month, etc.)
Q: How is the new curriculum effecting the schedule and time for free play?
A: Our new curriculum has a requirement for minutes of instruction in order for students to make the gains we want to see. Before, we were using a balanced literacy approach and teachers had a lot more flexibility in their schedule. We weren't using a research-based curriculum.
Q: Is there reduced recess?
A: The District has not reduced recess. In our schedule we have 40 minutes of unstructured play in the day for elementary, and the law requires a minimum of 30 minutes.
The Board approved Mary Schloz as the District's next Chief Financial Officer (CFO) effective October 1, 2024. Dr. Schloz is joining Urbana School District from Decatur Public School District where she has most recently served as the Assistant Director of Finance, Grants, and Special Projects. During her eleven-year tenure with Decatur, she also served as Assistant Principal of Eisenhower High School and Principal of Stevenson Elementary. Dr. Schloz also spent six years as a middle school and elementary school teacher in Springfield, Illinois.