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The Challenge:
Every Student Has Unique Needs

Play 3

Create Personal Activity Plans

When a student enters ninth grade at the Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill (N.C.), they sit with a counselor and chart an academic path forward. They explore educational interests and goals, review test scores and classes taken, and develop a plan that starts with freshman courses but keeps the end in mind – that moment four years from now when they walk at graduation, prepared for the world ahead.

This exercise is common in high schools across the country. In 2020, Trinity added a new layer: A four-year athletic plan. Students were asked what sports, if any, they had played. What sport and general fitness options might interest them at the school. How those offerings might integrate with any non-school club sport activities they are involved with, or that robotics club that is of interest. And how the adults at Trinity can help them achieve their personal vision, whether it be a college athletic scholarship or just making friends through sports. Some schools ask these questions informally. At Trinity, it’s put down on paper.

We believe this simple innovation holds great promise. Call it a “Personal Activity Plan,” or any name you prefer, to underscore its deeper purpose – for students to acquire and retain the physical, cognitive, social and emotional benefits from physical activity that will help them succeed in life. Formulating such a plan can be invaluable in identifying sport and physical activity options for the less athletically confident or inclined student. It can gently help the more ambitious athletes get realistic about their prospects of playing beyond high school (39% say they play to chase college scholarships yet less than 2% go on to get one).²²

Injury and health history could be incorporated to help guide decision-making on sport options. Lots could be built on top of the plan if integrated with other extracurricular and academic activities – as it should. Our data show boys, especially, struggle to take on more than sports in the school environment.²³

We recognize the capacity challenges. Do administrators have time to meet with each student? In most schools, right now, the answer is no. But some can. Others can start down this path by introducing materials in ninth-grade transition materials. Think of using advisory periods during the school day to introduce the concept. Ask athletic directors and PE teachers to support. It’s a next-generation idea that school leaders just need help in puzzling out and resourcing.

WHO CAN HELP

Families

Demand that school districts recognize the benefits of sports and physical activity, and that they invest. Organizations such as SHAPE America have advocacy resources to help parents make their case. That means having enough PE teachers and athletic personnel on staff to get to know students and develop opportunities that meet their needs and interests. Advocate for all students, not just your own, by supporting bond issues that fund these capacities.

Local School Districts

Recognize the value of school counselors and how truly overwhelmed most of them are. The average high school student-to-school counselor ratio is 311 to 1.²⁴ Nearly 1 in 5 students (about 8 million) don’t have access to a school counselor at all.²⁵ Raise the minimum number of counselors required on staff, and better connect them with PE teachers, coaches or athletic directors who are best positioned to advise a student on sport and physical activity options.

Business & Industry

Technology companies can develop a Personal Activity Plan platform that starts with students describing their interests and history playing sports. That way, the lift for school employees is in the review, not the creation of the plan. Add fields and functionality that make it easy for students and their families to evaluate the relative benefits of participating in various activities, and which can connect them easily to school coaches and approved local programs.

Philanthropy 

Take the lead in piloting this model within a geographic area of interest. This is what charitable institutions do best – provide the seed funding to develop promising ideas that government and schools can later scale.

Agencies

As required by federal law, students with documented disabilities are already provided an Individual Education Program, a written plan designed to meet a child’s unique education needs.²⁶ Parents, teachers and school staff come together to develop that plan, and progress toward goals is measured. Given the connection between exercise and educational performance, the U.S. Department of Education can add sport activities.

 
 
 

There’s a sport for every student. Find those that are right for your students and your school with the help of the Healthy Sport Index, a resource of the Aspen Institute and Hospital for Special Surgery that analyzes the relative benefits and risks of each of the top 10 sports played by boys and girls in high school. Data-informed insights are offered on physical activity rates, social and emotional benefits (psychosocial), and injury risks (safety), with an interactive tool that allows customization based on the needs of each student.

 

FINDING SUCCESS

Learn more about the four-year athletic plans put in place by Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill in our report on Private Schools. Said Jez McIntosh, associate head of school, “It reinforces our belief that every kid should have an opportunity to play a sport. We’ll give you all the offerings and walk you through them. It increases opportunities to get them involved. It opens the door to say, yeah, you can be part of this program.”

DIVE DEEPER