Iowa High School Offers PE Credit For Doing Yard Work for Local Elderly

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A high school in Dubuque, Iowa offers a really special way that high schoolers can earn PE credits. That's by helping out the local elderly with yard work at their homes. The school that's doing this is the Alternative Learning Center in Dubuque.

What's the Alternative Learning Center All About?

The Alternative Learning Center is an alternative schooling option for at-risk high school students, according to their website. They write that ALC is project-based and designed "to engage students that have struggled to find success at their home school." It helps kids get back on track to graduation.

How to Earn PE Credits by Helping the Elderly

In the final two weeks of the school year, students are given different options to get necessary PE credits. One of those options is helping out local elderly with yard work. KWWL out of Dubuque spoke with one of the teachers, Tim Hitzler, about this PE credit option. He said they could "'be raking leaves, pulling weeds, cutting grass, cleaning gutters, just depends on what they need.'” Tim mentions that at first the kids usually aren't super pumped about the yard work at first but in the end, they enjoy it because they like being able to help someone.

The world originally found out about this story in 2019. I'm not sure what happened to this PE credit option last year and the end of this year with the pandemic going on, but I hope, if they had to do away with it, that it'll be back for next summer.