Starting the 2018/2019 school year Palatine High School and all other D211 schools have made the change to wellness classes from P.E. and gym. Wellness combines the two classes into one.

Wellness classes spend one unit of P.E in the gym, then spend one unit of health in the classroom.

“A student will now get a comprehensive wellness program for all four years at Palatine with the bulk of the curriculum coming Freshmen and Sophomore year,” wellness teacher David Brault said.

Moving forward students still have all of the same gym options that previous years had. This means students can still take gym classes like weights, gym leaders, and adventure. Although students can still take these classes, there will be classroom breaks for health lessons. Junior and senior wellness will not be as intense as freshman and sophomore. There will be fewer breaks for health.

“Sophomore year can be too late to receive some of the information that health provides,” Scott Hagel, a wellness teacher at Palatine, said. As most students took health as sophomores. “Getting the information to students sooner will help them make better decisions moving forward.”

The switch has allowed students to free up an elective class that they otherwise would have used for health. Many students chose to take health over summer school and now students no longer have to do that.

“I like freshman wellness,” Alekhya Thotakura, freshman, said. “I think it’s very important for students to get the information we learn in health as soon as possible. I also like having a break from exercising everyday.”

Class size has also greatly decreased. Last year the average health class had over 40 students now wellness classes have only about 30.

“One of the only downfalls that we have seen is scheduling,” Hagel said. “There is limited gym space and few health classrooms, fitting more classes can be challenging, but we haven’t ran into too many problems yet.”

“I appreciate having an extra elective, but I don’t understand why it has to be coed,” freshman Mel Reidel said. “Units like the swim unit would be better if it were separated by gender.”

“I don’t think I would have preferred wellness,” Fidan Malikova, senior, said. “I enjoyed taking health over summer, it kept me busy.”