On August 28, 2024, the Virginia Board of Education voted in acceptance to allow students taking a Unified Physical Education (UPE) class to earn credit for graduation as a substitution for taking physical education 9 and physical education 10 classes. A letter has been written by VAPEC voicing concerns.
The VAPEC Board asks that you review the letter (linked below) and if you are in agreement, show your support by completing the form. We plan to send this letter with the list of supporters to the Virginia Board of Education by December 6th, 2024. Please share this with other colleagues such as health teachers, physical education teachers, and adapted physical education teachers. At this time, we are hesitant to share with administrators or other school professionals who may not be familiar with UPE and may favor its substitution.
At first, I had little understanding of SO UPE, but I did my own research and reached out to A.P.E. teachers that have utilized this concept. I don’t think many people fully understand it (teachers, parents, administrators) regarding goals, structure, and implementation. Although there is a resource book created by SO, I think having a guidance document from the A.P.E. community would be beneficial and helpful especially aligning with IDEA and dear colleague letters.
In Maine, a colleague reported that her school district's special education teacher has indicated that the Unified PE program (50% general ed & 50% special ed students) is a general education program. Her rationale was that because the class has 51% general education students, it is then a general education class. My colleague said that because the Unified PE program is only offered for one semester, she provides APE services to one or more of her students during that class. It is reported on their service page as receiving a general education class, not specially designed instruction. Furthermore, my colleague indicated that the class is also for students who have failed general physical education classes. I am not really certain what that means and have not pursued this any further. Per the Constitution, each school district has local control over their education program. That being said it is of my opinion that unless this is an elective class, students with disabilities, who could otherwise be eligible for specially designed instruction (APE) are only receiving 1/2 of the service time in the unified PE program at this school. Not having more information about the issues, all I can do is speculate. I have had discussions with my colleague as she was sharing the information with others - indicating that this was ok. I told her that it may or may not be aligned with IDEA and that what her school district is doing is a local decision.
A physical education teacher in Maine emailed the Maine APE Task Force and asked a question regarding an individual in his school district who does not have a Maine APE 515 endorsement to his PE license told the district he was calling his otherwise APE class, young athletes (by the way that is a special education program as well). He asked if that was "ok"? As chair, I responded no it is not ok. Students with disabilities need to be either in general education with grade level peers or receive specially designed instruction. If the teacher feels that the students in his "young athlete" program are in need of this special programming, each student needs to be evaluated to determine eligibility for specially designed APE. Now the teacher of the "young athlete" program knows some of this and he said that he changed the name of the class from APE (because he does not have the 515 APE license to teach) to "young athlete". So here the PE teacher knows he is violating Federal and State IDEA statutes and so does his colleague. I have not heard back.
Special Olympics recognizing schools for outstanding Unified programs which encourages teachers to implement more of a unified PE program. Teachers also realize that by adding Gen Ed students to APE then they can assist or even lead the classes instead of the teacher. The teachers see it as an easy way out of actually teaching APE. Teachers love to justify how "great" this is and how both the gen ed and swd benefit from each other, which can be true to a degree, but there is usually no teaching going on, just hanging out and doing stations. Also, on the flip side, the gen ed students are not getting challenged with any skill development. They are just "babysitters".