NEWS: High School Education - Gym + AP Bio = No Graduation

CULTURE: High School Education - Gym + AP Bio = No Graduation

A high school senior in New Hampshire decided that she would rather take AP Biology rather than a Physical Education class called BEST - "Building Essential Skills for Tomorrow" The problem, according to Bow High School, is that the BEST class is a requirement, where as AP Bio is not. Thus, she's not going to graduate.

Even more puzzling, the school would not even consider waiving the requirement and giving Isabel Gottleib credit for playing three varsity sports. So, in order to attend Trinity College in Connecticut in the fall, Isabel will have to take her GED exam.

Well, it's good to see one tiny New Hampshire high school taking a firm stand against America's rising obesity, even if it means that actual academic education is thrown to the wayside.

that... is... insane!

lol... that's just mad...

why is this news? this kind of stuff has been standard all over the country for longer than I've ever been around

well i feel nothing for her. she had to have known it was a required class.

Thats what I'm asking myself.

She's a senior, taking AP classes, and she still doesn't know her graduation requirements?

My high school would grant waivers for everything; you could get out of taking PE if you were in marching band. But they wouldn't grant any to seniors... I guess they figured if you wanted to take all AP classes to get into a good school you'd be smart enough to plan ahead.


(When I was in school AP Bio was for sophomores- she's just a slacker! Now get off my lawn!)

It's a blog, not CNN.

i never took a day of p.e in my whole high school career.
sounds like she need to transfer to a state with lower standards.

i knew arizona was good for something.
but at least i never had to take any of thoese creepy public high school showers.

that's government schools for yah

True.

i've got a way to get out of gym class. it's called "get mono". it worked for me.

If she knew it was a requirement, she should have scheduled it in. I took gym, and I still had room for my AP classes. I have no pity.

She can't skate through college without taking crappy, required gen-eds either.

I know the point is that she played sports and shouldn't have had to take gym, but that's something that should have been addressed (and approved) LONG before graduation day.

While I agree with what's said about faulting her for not knowing her graduation requirements, I do have to wonder, where the hell was her advisor/guidance counselor when she was doing her schedule? Hell, our system was set up so that you had to first fill in classes that would cover your required classes at the time and then you put in the extra stuff. For example, if you didn't schedule PE your freshman year, it would raise a red flag and your advisor would contact you about it. If there was a good reason for not having such a class, your advisor had to sign off on it.

So while I place most of the blame on her, this sounds like the kind of school system that lets people fall thru the cracks.

Ahh, the joys of the one-size-fits-all school system. So very irritating. One shouldn't HAVE to "play the game" to graduate.

Well, you know what? That's the way things work sometimes. It's not about what should/shouldn't be, it's about what IS.

Shouldn't the "No Child Left Behind" crap force her ahead anyway?

When I went to high school I was automatically put in the two gym classes I had to take. Courses that were required to graduate were automatically put on your schedule with the exception of Bio, Chem and Physics because you got to choose which ones you wanted to take.

Seriously... she should have known better than this.

Been there, done that. In my case it really was a scheduling problem to do both. The science classes at the high school were rather slow, so I started taking classes at the local college. Fitting in PE was an issue. The high school wouldn't budge on the requirement.

I called all the schools I was interested in (Caltech, MIT, CMU, etc.), and all of them said they didn't care if I graduated. Upper tier schools take students without diplomas all the time. Amusingly, if I had wanted to go to the lame state university they would have rejected me. Even more reason to not graduate.

I wonder what's up with Trinity.

Funny to see everyone here telling the girl "she should have known" when the school itself didn't catch the mistake. Call me crazy, but I'm on her side.

three varsity sports?

you know, at my high school, we had the option to test out of PE our senior year by doing an 8 minute mile and 12 pushups...or something like that...instead, I opted to play basketball everyday my freshman year in PE class...

Three varsity sports are apparently not enough to give you skills for the future?

I got my PE credit for being in choir.

I loved PE, too.

Not that I really liked any of the sports we played, except when we did some Judo. It was just a free A for no effort. Who would turn that down?

I took AP bio when I was a freshman, so did my little brother. By the time senior year rolled around, I had already taken all of the AP science courses the school offered. I planned ahead so I wouldn't have to do any work my senior year.

*Gives Keith a wedgie*

You just said that when you were in high school they told you what you needed to take. The article clearly states that the school didn't tell her until AFTER she made her schedule.

I've heard a lot of bloviating in this thread, but no one has yet explained what the school has to lose in letting her graduate.