Ah, the wonderful world of Physical Education. If you are in Coach Sion or Coach Hutchinson’s class, you probably had to do tests on your physical fitness. You also may have been convinced to do well on these tests because one of the coaches told you they were going to submit your score to UCLA. These tests have a deeper meaning than you may think. 

This is part of a P.E. program dubbed “Sound Body Sound Mind”, which was brought to middle schools by a college student at UCLA. This student wanted to find a topic to do a research paper on, eventually deciding on middle school Physical Education. The student was wondering how middle schoolers in different districts were doing with P.E. after the pandemic. Then the student partnered with the Sound Body Sound Mind. Now P.E. coaches across Southern California are having their pupils take tests. These tests include the curl-up test, push-up test, and pacer test. The coaches then submit the test results to UCLA Health. In return, SBSM provides P.E. coaches with exercise equipment. The program has already worked with school districts such as LAUSD and Long Beach School District. This year, GUSD was chosen.

“These tests are actually the same as the FitnessGram,” says Coach Hutchinson, one of the two teachers, along with Coach Sion, to take on this initiative. “If you’ve done them in elementary school, most of the kids will know them already.” Sound Body Sound Mind comes in three phases; the kids are currently in the pre-testing/first phase. The students will do these tests again 2 more times this year. “We’re incorporating the equipment in our units, so students will still be able to do their units like normal, like ultimate frisbee or basketball.” 

At the beginning of the school year, two coaches from every middle school in GUSD volunteered to submit their students’ test results to UCLA. You may have noticed that Coaches Chappell, Mustain, and Olmedo aren’t participating in the program. This is because it’s a lot to have every single kid do these tests, and SBSM can’t provide enough equipment for the whole school.

In short, our coaches will be delivering information to Sound Body Sound Mind, creating an average of where GUSD kids stand in their Physical Fitness. So just in case you were ever wondering what the heck your P.E. coach was talking about when they said “Sound Body Sound Mind,” we wrote an article about it.