Credit: Mark Blakley

Madison Baute, a high school freshman from Agua Dulce, butt racing on her horse, Dash. She had hoped to receive a physical teaching course exemption for the time she spends training.

Credit: Mark Blakley

Madison Baute, a high school freshman from Agua Dulce, barrel racing on her horse, Dash. She had hoped to receive a concrete education class exemption for the fourth dimension she spends training.

High school rodeo riders who stood to be exempted from country physical education requirements have lost that possibility, at to the lowest degree for the 2022 legislative year, according to the California state senator who authored a bill to let the exemptions.

At the same time, the land Senate on Monday passed a nib that would make cheerleading a high school sport and thereby eligible for at least fractional high schoolhouse physical education credit. The measure, Assembly Neb 949, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, now heads to the governor's desk-bound.

Rodeo and cheerleading proponents took two different paths in the legislature, with cheerleading advocates earning the blessing of land physical education instructors past agreeing to work with the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the state governing trunk for high school sports, to meet the oversight, training and curriculum required of a school-sponsored interscholastic sport. Rodeo advocates went a more controversial road past seeking an exemption from physical education requirements without providing the construction and oversight of a schoolhouse-sponsored sport.

"They could accept gone the CIF road like cheerleading did," said Betty Hennessy, president of the California Association for Wellness, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, a membership system for physical education teachers.

Barrel racers, bull riders and goat tying contestants, among other rodeo competitors, would take been allowed under Senate Bill 138 to have their local schoolhouse boards exempt them from attention physical education classes. The bill was authored by Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, who said a group of loftier schoolhouse riders approached her at the 2022 state rodeo finals in Bishop and asked her to press for an exemption in recognition of their athleticism and do time.

The bill passed the Senate after a hearing that brought a dozen loftier school rodeo competitors to the Capitol wearing cowboy hats, Western yoke-style shirts, jeans and boots, but failed to pass the Associates Education Commission. In a common legislative move, Fuller has used the neb number to innovate a different proposal. Senate Neb 138 at present has been rewritten as a seismic safety neb, said Tom Collins, spokesman for Fuller.

The death of the neb is a win for physical educators, who viewed the measure out equally counter to their efforts to provide quality physical education classes that follow content standards adopted in 2005 by the State Board of Education. While the California Education Code requires public schools to provide at least 200 minutes of physical education every ten days in uncomplicated schools, and 400 minutes in middle and high schools, concrete educational activity teachers accept seen widespread noncompliance and have watched as military instructors take been authorized, albeit in a limited fashion, to teach physical education.

"Rodeo is a community sport," said Betty Hennessy, president of an clan of physical education teachers. "It'due south not governed by the schoolhouse and instructors are non hired past the school or monitored by the school."

"Nosotros are pleased with the outcome of this," Hennessy said. "We support state standards for all students in all bailiwick areas, not only physical education."

Co-ordinate to Hennessy, the nib ran into trouble considering information technology clashed with a California Pedagogy Code specification that allows districts to grant physical education exemptions to students involved in a "school-sponsored interscholastic athletic program," such as a school sports team. Interscholastic sports teams must comply with requirements that include training coaches in CPR, first aid and gender equity laws. In addition, schoolhouse teams typically are regulated by the California Interscholastic Federation.

Simply for rare exceptions, California high school rodeo is neither schoolhouse-sponsored nor interscholastic, Hennessy said. "Rodeo is a community sport," Hennessy said. "Information technology's non governed by the schoolhouse and instructors are not hired past the school or monitored by the school."

High school rodeo competitors are organized by the California High School Rodeo Association, a nonprofit membership group, into nine geographic districts. At events hosted by the California association or the National High School Rodeo Clan, riders compete against each other, not other schoolhouse teams. According to the national clan, 595 California high school students are registered rodeo competitors.

An analysis of the neb prepared by the Associates Educational activity Commission raised a slew of concerns. Most vividly, the analysis described scenarios of potential school district liability: What if a student at a barn 10 miles from schoolhouse is thrown from a horse during a riding lesson for which the student is receiving a physical teaching exemption? What if a student is injure while riding a equus caballus at home unsupervised while receiving a physical didactics exemption?

Oakdale Loftier School in the Oakdale Joint Unified School District – the only high school to ship a representative to the Senate hearing to evidence that it recognizes rodeo as a school sport – sought to defuse liability concerns. In a statement of support for the neb, Oakdale High said that the California and National High School Rodeo Associations provide liability protection to competitors at sanctioned events. In improver, student members of the California High Schoolhouse Rodeo Association are covered past medical insurance once their almanac membership ante are paid, Oakdale said.

Voicing its opposition, the California Teachers Association said in a statement that rodeo is "a supplementary extracurricular physical activity beyond the cadre standards-based physical education curriculum."

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