The State Board of Education graduation requirement in Health and Physical Education is one unit, of which one-half unit is required in the Personal Fitness course (36.051) and one-half unit in the Health course (17.011).
Both courses have a course description which should be followed by the teacher. Obviously the method of teaching differs throughout the state but the course description does not.

Courses: http://www.gadoe.org/_documents/doe/legalservices/160-4-2-.03.pdf

Maureen

On 19 November at approximately 12:30 students occupied Campbell Hall at UCLA. The time has come for us to make a statement and issue our demands. In response to this injunction we say: we will ask nothing. We will demand nothing. We will take, we will occupy. We have to learn not to tip toe through a space which ought by right to belong to everyone.

We are under no illusions. The UC Regents will vote the budget cuts and raise student fees. The profoundly undemocratic nature of their decision making process, and their indifference to the plight of those who struggle to afford an education or keep their jobs, can come as no surprise.

We know the crisis is systemic – and that it reaches beyond the Regents, beyond the criminal budget cuts in Sacremento, beyond the economic crisis, to the very foundations of our society. But we also know that the enormity of the problem is just as often an excuse for doing nothing.

We choose to fight back, to resist, where we find ourselves, the place where we live and work, our university.

We therefore ask that those who share in our struggle lend us not only their sympathy but their active support. For those students who work two or three jobs while going to school, to those parents for whom the violation of the UC charter means the prospect of affordable education remains out of reach, to laid off teachers, lecturers, to students turned away, to workers who’ve seen the value of their diplomas evaporate in an economy that ‘grows’ without producing jobs – to all these people and more besides, we say that our struggle is your struggle, that an alternative is possible if you have the courage to seize it.

We are determined that the struggle should spread. That is the condition in which the realization of our demands becomes possible.

To our peaceful demonstration, to our occupation of our own university, we know the Univeristy will respond with the full force of the police at its command. We hear the helicoptors circle above us. We intend to learn and to teach through our occupation, humbly but with determination. We are not afraid. We are not going anywhere.

http://uclaresists.blogspot.com/2009/11/communique-from-ucla-occupation.html

My son is a HS senior and he is taking a “personal fitness” class that is a part of his graduation requirement. It has come to my attention that the only thing they have to do in that class is to run a particular distance within a set time – I think they may have different time limits for different grades. So, the only thing they do for the class is to just run around the track. Actually, my son told me that they have been inside the last several classes because of bad weather. They just simply play around. And, he told me that “Friday is a free day,” whatever that means.

Is this a course that has to be taken by all students to graduate from HS? What are we paying this teacher for? We can just have a parent volunteer, or even one of APs to just watch them run around the track – s/he could be doing whatever else s/he pleases. I don’t know if this is a particular issue with my son’s school, but it was very similar when my other son took the course last year, too.

At the time of budget difficulties, I just wonder why we have this teacher getting paid to do something that anyone can do – for much less money.