Even as childhood obesity is skyrocketing, both Kansas University and Lawrence public schools are scaling back their physical education programs.

KU officials said Tuesday they were planning to cut a degree program for physical education teachers. Public schools, meanwhile, are considering significantly decreasing the number of hours elementary students are in physical education classes.

“You hear lots of things in the news about obesity and childhood diabetes, and it’s just going to get worse,” predicted Jeff McAdoo, a physical education teacher at Quail Run School. “If we keep cutting physical ed programs, it’s going to get even worse.”

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 percent of children were overweight in 1999, triple the percentage in 1980.

Still, KU has notified 14 students majoring in physical education and another 21 who have applied that its physical education program will be ending. Current majors will be allowed to complete their degrees as long as they do so by 2006.

‘A mismatch’

Angela Lumpkin, dean of the School of Education, said low enrollments led to the decision to stop accepting new students in the program. Enrollment has declined 80 percent since 1994.

And, Lumpkin said, elimination of physical education classes at the K-12 level may have attributed to the decline.

“There’s a mismatch between the number of graduates and the number of jobs available in schools, not just in Kansas but nationally,” she said.

Navigating the perimeter of the Quail Run School gymnasium during physical education class are, from left, second-graders Bret Watson, Heidi Dumesich and Haley Morris. The Lawrence school district is talking about scaling back on physical education; Kansas University announced Tuesday it was cutting its physical education teacher certification program.

Lumpkin, a former college physical education instructor, is among those concerned about the school cutbacks.

“The real crime about this is the obesity levels of children in this country are just skyrocketing, and although I don’t have the research to back it up, there are a lot of people who would say the elimination of physical education in public schools is directly related to the rise in obesity,” she said.

Faculty members who teach mainly in KU’s physical education program will be assigned to other classes in the health sport and exercise department, Lumpkin said. She said no layoffs were expected because other classes in the department had been crowded in recent years. She said she doubted the program’s elimination would save her school much money.

Faculty, student effect

Susan King, an associate professor who has taught in the program 12 years, is among those who doesn’t know what courses she’ll be teaching next year.

“It’s quite difficult,” she said. “I spent some very restless nights after the announcement was made because I felt like we’d invested so much in the program and in the students, and it’s like our investment has gone up in smoke. It just feels to us like a crime, like a crime has been committed against us.”

Mike Campbell, a senior from Oskaloosa, has been taking physical education courses but hadn’t been admitted into the program. Now, he said he’s considering switching to another university to become a physical education teacher.

“I was in shock,” he said. “I’ve wanted to be a Jayhawk since my dad went to school here.”

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Campbell said he couldn’t understand why physical education has been de-emphasized, both at the K-12 level and KU.

“I think it’s very important,” he said. “Kids learn more in PE than any other class — teamwork, how to be active, motor skills, cooperation. There’s so much you don’t get in other classes.”

School cutbacks

KU’s announcement comes at the same time Lawrence school district officials are considering scaling back their physical education programs.

Currently, elementary students attend 40 minutes of physical education class every three days, with the other two spent in art and music classes. A panel of administrators has recommended physical education classes instead be offered every four days, adding a class with school counselors in the rotation.

During a budget study session Monday, several school board members said they thought the four-day rotation should be high on the list of ways for elementary schools to save their portion of a projected $2 million budget shortfall next year, though no formal decisions were made.

Katy Buck, facilitator of school health services for Lawrence schools, said the district would have to consider incorporating health issues into its elementary curriculum if physical education was scaled back further.

“It makes me sad that we are cutting back,” Buck said. “There is a body of research that says kids do better in school when they exercise.”