Ironic PE Grants to Charleston County Schools

The Charleston County School District has been awarded $825,ooo over the next three years to develop better physical education programs at eight of its more impoverished schools. [See Schools Awarded Federal PE Grant.]

Despite delight at welcoming our own tax money back (minus bureaucratic overhead), let's remember what physical exercise CCSD chooses not to promote, namely, walking to school. The timing of announced grant drips with irony, since this week is "Walk to School Week."

Given its policies over the last decade involving transfers, magnets, and mega-school buildings, not to mention chicken-little policies regarding earthquakes, CCSD has done its part to see that as many students as possible ride a bus to school. Local developers and city councils have cooperated by avoiding the expense of sidewalks. In many cases, students would take their life into their hands to walk along well-traveled roads without sidewalks, even when the distance is short.

Believe it or not, walking to school is good exercise too. It doesn't take federal tax dollars, either.