Federalism and the States

                My community partner is Valley Oak High School in Napa which is a continuation high school. The purpose of this school is to provide an environment in which students who struggle in a regular high school setting can get the attention and help that they need in order to graduate. Many of the students at this school dropped out of a regular high school because of attendance issues, failing classes, disciplinary issues and other unique circumstances. The continuation high school most likely evolved out of local need to help increase graduation rates for the Napa Valley Unified School District. The school is a response to provide a place for struggling students to have as much of an opportunity to graduate as the average student. In particular, I will be working with my sister, Carolyn Knudson, who is starting up the first P.E.  Program at Valley Oak High School this year. Previously, Valley Oak had P.E. teachers who would just roll out a basketball and tell the students to play. There was no structure to the class and many students would refuse to participate. The Napa Valley Unified School District decided that it was best to fill the position that opened for a P.E. teacher that would engage the students in physical education that teaches them the team work and basic fundamentals of sports. In addition, the school also added a component of health to the course to teach healthy habits and important information. The local need stemmed from trying to fill a local need to provide an outlet for these students to exercise, release pent up energy and learn to work with each other.

                The new P.E./health program is restrained by the budget that is allotted to the program. The only full set of equipment that the program has right now is a set of hockey sticks that they cannot even use. Even though schools are directly affected by the local district’s decisions, they must adhere to the testing and other curriculum set forth by the state. In turn, the federal government helps to fund the school districts through grants and funding which have mandates attached to them. The biggest problem facing my CP is the fact that she does not have enough access to funding to make her program effective. In many cases, she must borrow equipment from other schools in the district. The mandates that the federal government creates for education focus on giving funding for success in such areas as math, science and English. For this reason, it is difficult in a lot of cases for P.E. departments to gain access to more funding. There is less emphasis on physical education even though America has a growing obesity epidemic. The biggest obstacle to this is being able to obtain funding because the federal government does not generally give federal funding to P.E. departments. Instead, Carolyn must rely on the state to allocate her local government money for her program. She also has the option to find money from an outside source but this could also prove to be difficult.

                My community partner is accountable to the local government on the most fundamental level. Education is left to the state which is then given to the local government to create a school system that fits the needs of system to the needs of its citizens. In this way, my community partner must adhere to the curriculum created by the local school district and teach her students what is outlined in that. On the next level, my community partner must test her students at the end of each school year with the standardized tests that are created by the state of California. These tests are created to assure that students are as healthy and fit. Finally, it is the federal government that all these scores must be reported to in order to compare each state’s education program to the other states. I am not completely if sure if continuation high schools have to adhere to the same standards as other schools.