San Francisco BoE abolishes JROTC

I absolutely LOATHED gym. It wasted time I could be taking a real class, maintaining a peak performance body isn't necessary anymore, and I don't need gym to advance myself. I much preferred to take a class that would have some impact on my future employability, not my lack of muscles and shortness of breath. It's not 1950 anymore.

edited 11th Jul '11 1:38:57 PM by Lanceleoghauni

Now they can know the pain of the art folks who got their programs dropped.

Yay American Education!

Though I don't care much what San Francisco did five years ago, I feel compelled to Devil's Advocate their decision, because everyone else seems to be dogpiling on them, so two points:

• Yes, JROTC is voluntary, but the opponents in the article are entirely right that the military uses it to recruit. And it's not optional to have them try to recruit you into JROTC (how could it be? They're in school, you're in school), so what happens in practice is that the military gets a captive audience for their recruiting.
  • Also, it replaces gym, so a lot of kids go into it to get out of gym (not the best idea, because it's just as physically strenuous as a gym class, but I know from personal experience that they do do it). Which means, again, the military gets a captive audience.
• According to the article, the school board saved a million dollars cutting this. They could spend that on all kinds of things that are more relevant to education than JROTC.

So, physical exercise is bad? Huzzah.

edited 11th Jul '11 1:45:41 PM by MilosStefanovic

1) The vast majority of people who take JROTC never enlist; they take it because it's fun.

2) Generally speaking, people will continue to take gym even when it's no longer required; it's rare for people to take ROTC to skip gym. There's also PT in JROTC; SF must have different standards.

3) Apparently nobody knows what it is that they spent that money on.

edited 11th Jul '11 1:46:43 PM by Kino

I'm sure somebody knows, if they want to check the SFUSD's budget reports.

I can't say I do. I barely care about my own local schools.

But really, an open lot and a 10$ soccer ball? How many students do you expect to serve with that? Not that maintaining a dirt lot is cheap, and grass is even more expensive. Not to mention the teacher you'd employ to supervise them anyway.

Besides, people would expect if they're getting something to get quality, but if you give them nothing, then at least they won't demand more.

Dirt and grass? What kind of upper-class high school did you go to? We played soccer on the basketball court; apparently concrete is cheap.

Here in Serbia, most schools only have an open field and several old balls for gym. Are there any problems? Any injuries? No. Do the kids love it? Yes.

Gym? I'm taking that as an online course over the summer.

oh good, I'm not the only one to have done that.

Why am I not surprised.

We had a decent budget it seemed...We had fields for the soccer, football, and baseball. We also had volleyball, tennis, and basketball courts (outside and a small school stadium inside for league games) in addition to a pool with diving boards (and a smaller one for special ed students).

Dance classes and JROTC were your alternatives to gen. P.E. and the various specific sports classes.

We had a fuckton of other electives ranging from art to woodshop and AP classes too...The ROP classes were beginning to be cut down like ROP Floral though. We still had a few though. Like ROP autoshop (in addition to the normal autoshop classes...).

Because it's a waste of time I could have been learning something useful?

My high schools all had decent budgets, but I was in a DOD school so...

edited 11th Jul '11 1:57:11 PM by Lanceleoghauni

Most of the people in my high school PE classes just sat somewhere in the shade of a building. If that counts as loving it, ok...

There were mostly basketballs, not soccer balls though. They were trying to build a football stadium though, because that would have made money! And solved all their problems. Or something.

edited 11th Jul '11 1:59:07 PM by blueharp

So, next they're going to be cutting the cheerleading team, right? Because the JROTC was basically just men's cheer at my high school.

But cheer is important! [/snark]

I miss pool time...that was awesome...I got to swim. My friends and I would play "RACE TO GET THE THING AND THE BOTTOM OF THE POOL". We'd also mess with the one kid's sports watch because we found hearing the alarm underwater highly amusing...

I liked P.E.

Dance was hell though. People were dicks in dance.

Oh yeah. Cheer. You could be in cheer too. I forgot about that...

edited 11th Jul '11 1:59:19 PM by Aondeug

Seriously; who are football players supposed to fool around with? Volleyball girls? We all know what they're like.

Just out of curiosity, what is JROTC? The article won't load for me.

I assume it's like the various cadet forces or even CCF(spitspitspitponceybastardsspitspit)?

edited 11th Jul '11 2:00:55 PM by InverurieJones

I've been sort of hoping for the complete removal of school sponsored sports forever. If they want sports they should form teams and leagues outside of school :/

Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. Pre-college military cadet type program. ROTC is the version in colleges.

You'd have better chance wishing they'd burn the books and just set up Football Camps. Maybe with a side of Baseball and Basketball.

edited 11th Jul '11 2:01:08 PM by blueharp

@Jones: Stands for "Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps". It's a good program, and all the kids I knew who took it did well in their classes and liked it and stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Reserve_Officers'_Training_Corps

I will cry the day that happens. Along with the day that school sponsored performing arts activities are cut.

I WANT MY FOOTBALL GAMES AND MY FUCKING PLAYS AND I WANT THEM NOW.

I know, I'd just like the science department to not have to wait twenty years in between upgrading equipment as they scrape their pennies and dimes together.

Ok, enjoy your fat ass sedentary lifestyle then.

America has an obesity problem, it is a problem and we can't just ignore it, nor can we cut measures to curb the problem such as gym class. If you need a frigging hoveround to get to and from your desk and the parking lot, you're pretty damn useless to society.

Besides, it does have an impact if you show up to the job interview and you're a tub of lard.

Gym is a cheap class to keep up if you really want to run it on the cheap. An after school sports program is expensive, a basic gym class is one of the cheapest classes to keep. You can run a gym class on a 2000 dollar a year equipment budget and still have a wide variety of sports options available.

edited 11th Jul '11 2:05:37 PM by Barkey