A state school board member says there should be more flexibility, but also safeguards to make sure all students are getting opportunities in middle school for the arts, PE and health.
Kathleen Riebe says her mind has changed to say there should be more flexibility.
“I like having the guardrails in place of keeping it mandatory, but I do like that you can opt out, you can get a waiver, as long as there is a guardrail in place protecting students who don’t have advocates,” she said.
Riebe says one concern is that students need those opportunities to be required or they won’t chose them.
“The counter argument to that is we are not trying to get rid of it, we are not saying it’s bad, we just want to give more flexibility to these local districts so that they don’t have to make everyone go through these programs that parents don’t want to go through,” she said.
Riebe likes the ability to give a waiver to someone who is in something like piano or music lessons or on a sports team outside of school, so they are freed up in school to take a different class.
The board heard comments for around 3 hours Wednesday night. Unless they meet and vote again on it, the changes will be in effect in 2018.
