In a Student Government plenary session on November 6, senior Izzy Saker presented a proposal that would give student athletes who participate in out-of-school athletics the same exemption from gym class as in-school athletes receive. The proposal passed with a 90% majority vote and will be in effect starting in second semester if approved by the Physical Education department.

“Out-of-school athletes who spend the same amount of time competing as Parker athletes do should be exempt from gym class,” Saker said. “It’s frustrating to go to gym class twice a week on top of rowing every day after school.”

For the past three years, students at Parker have been permitted to miss gym class if they participate on any of Parker’s nine interscholastic high school sports teams.

One independent athlete, junior fencer Charlie Roth, believes that the time that he spends fencing should earn him exemption from his gym class, which meets twice a week for 55 minutes.

“I fence for 17 hours a week during most weeks of the year,” Roth said. “It’s frustrating having to go to gym class although I spend more time practicing than Parker athletes do.”

One of the questions that has arisen as a result of the independent athlete proposal is how many out-of-school hours should constitute exemption. Initially, Saker’s proposal stated that the requirement should be ten hours, which is a rough equivalent to the amount of time Parker’s high school sports teams meet every week. After a lengthy debate in the Plenary session, the requirement was lowered to 5 and then raised to 7, where it stayed. Now it is back to 10 hours.

“I believe that the amount of hours should be brought back up to ten,” senior Phil Barber said. “As an out-of-school athlete, I can assure you that our commitments are all well over ten hours, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about in lowering the amount needed to miss gym.”

P.E. teachers are also worried about the proposal, but for a different reason–the number of students present in their gym classes. “I don’t want the amount of students in my classes to go down more and more until no one shows up!” P.E. teacher Patrick McHale said. “That being said, out-of-school athletes should be recognized for their contributions out-of-school.”

Currently, the P.E. department is gathering a list of out-of-school athletes to discuss who could be considered exempt for the second semester and who would not.