P H O T O G R A P H S B Y MI C H A E L J .

L E B R E C H T I I / 1 D E U C E 3 P H O T O G R A P H Y
S l T L L N | S K AT L B 0 A R D l N C
S P O R T S I L L U S T R A T E D T E E N

s third period begins at East Side

Community High School in New York
City, a group of 10th-graders eagerly
wait for the days lesson. But the
sound thats echoing off the walls isnt
squeaking chairs or rustling textbooks. Over
the excited chatter of the class, the crisp sounds
of wood snapping on the ground and rolling
ball bearings ll the air.
Everybody grab a board and helmet, says
the teacher, Billy Rohan. Its time for skate-
board class to begin.
Started in 2008, Rohans skateboarding
physical education class offers students a new
way to get active. The class is an elective that
kids at two New York City schools, East Side
Community and New Design High School, can
take as an alternative to traditional gym class.
The program started with 20 students and has
grown to more than 40.
Now when East Side Communitys students
le out of the school into the park next door, the
basketball courts share space with benches
built for grinds and slides on a skateboard. A
shipping container behind a set of bleachers
houses ramps and rails built by Rohan, his
students, and other members of the local skate
community. These obstacles have taken on a
8katehear|a c|ass |s |a sess|ea at twe
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BY NOAH JOHNSON
Pro skater Billy Rohan
developed a program
that uses skateboards to
teach gymclass at two
NewYork City schools.
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new life as teaching tools, and the
students who are practicing on them are
learning lessons that stretch far beyond
skateboarding.
Dropping In
When Rohan rst came up with the idea
for the skatepark, he didnt think it would
lead to a teaching job. We just wanted a
place to skate, recalls Rohan, age 28,
who won the 1997 Vans world amateur
championship in street skating. Open
Road, a New York Citybased nonprot
organization, had developed the park on
the land next to East Side Community,
converting it from an old bus garage, and
Rohan and others would skate on the
basketball courts during after-school
hours. With Open Roads help, Rohan
began to turn the courts into a skatepark.
Although the park isnt technically on
school grounds, the reception from East
Side Communitys administration wasnt
warm at rst. The principal came out
one day, and he wasnt having it, says
Rohan. Hes like, You cant do this
here! I said to him, Look around. Your
students are out here. One of those
students was Tyriq Holloway, a 10th-
grader at the time. Holloway picked up
the sport after seeing Rohan and others
skateboarding at the park.
I didnt skate back then,
he says. I was on the basket-
ball team. [Skateboarding]
looked cool, and I wanted
to try it, so I saved up my
money and got a board.
Holloway thought that a
skateboard class at school
would be a fun way to
learn the sport. At rst some
teachers thought that it was a
crazy idea, he says, but the
principal is a really cool guy. He
was like, if you can get enough
kids to sign [a petition], we will
think about it. I got every kid at
the school to sign it and some
teachers, too.
Despite his initial reaction,
the schools principal, Mark
Federman, could not ignore the
support for a skateboarding
phys ed program, and he called Rohan
to make it happen. Two skateboard
companies, Zoo York and CCS, donated
the gear, and brands like Red Bull and
Vans chipped in money to help pay for the
obstacles in the park.
It only took a few months for the school
to add the class to the curriculum. We got
the parents to sign permission slips,
says East Side assistant principal Tom
Mullen. We really didnt ask anybody.
We just did it. It turns out that its
right in line with the Department of
Educations philosophy of trying to get
kids interested in sports that they will
then do on their own time.
Class Pro|ects
With the green light, Rohan now had to
gure out what the class should consist
of. He worked with the
schools gym teacher to
design a program. Rohan
estimates that 70 percent
of his students had never
been on a board before
taking his class, so the
goal of the program is to
get kids to be active and
interested in skating,
not to create the next
Ryan Sheckler. Everyone starts from
the ground up, says Rohan. When it
comes time for grading, enthusiastic
participation and attendance weigh more
heavily than skill.
Each class consists of 15 minutes of
stretching and warmup exercises, 10
minutes of drills, and 20 minutes for free
skating. The drills include things like butt
races, where one student sits on the board
while another pushes. In the Michael
Phelps laps, students lie on their
stomachs on their boards and push
themselves with their arms. During the
wall crawl, the kids stand on their boards
and push along a wall with their hands.
As the classes progress, new drills like
relay races are introduced.
The exercises are designed to teach
balance and control. They also level the
playing eld so kids of all skill levels can
participate. Just because an advanced
skateboarder may know how to kickip,
it doesnt mean he or she cant be beaten
in a relay race by a faster student who is
using a skateboard for the rst time.
Rolling On
For Rohan and other skateboarders,
being accepted by the school system is a
major step forward. When I was in
middle school, you would get suspended
Tyriq Holloway (above) circulated a petition
to add skateboard physical education to the
school day.
Students are introduced
to skateboarding through
stretching and relay races.
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for bringing your board to
school, Rohan says. [Skating]
wasnt as popular as it is now,
where you have TV shows with
Rob Dyrdek and Ryan Sheckler.
That exposure has also made
authorities more comfortable
promoting skateboarding, and
its coming at a crucial time.
We have an obesity epidemic
in this country, says Rohan.
You have kids that stay at
home and play video games
all day. There are massive
problems with lack of exercise
in American culture.
While it might not commonly
be associated with exercise in
the same way that running
and other sports are, skate-
boarding can be just as
physically challenging. It is also
a sport that can be practiced
just about anywhere.
Not every kid from the city likes to
play basketball, says assistant principal
Mullen. And a kid that doesnt want to
play basketball doesnt have much to do.
There arent that many alternatives.
For Mullen, the skateboard PE class
began as a way to broaden his students
interests. I wanted kids to try something
new, Mullen says. I feel like that is a
rewarding experience and could lead to a
powerful life lesson. Just try something
that you wouldnt think youd be able to do
and see, hey, I can do this.
The approach seems to be working.
Laura Navarrete, who is a sophomore at
East Side Community, had little experience
with skateboarding before she took
Rohans class but has
improved a great deal
since she started. I
think its good to learn
new things and not
just stick to the same
curriculum, Navarrete
says. When I come to
school now, I have a class
that Ill have fun in.
The students sense of
accomplishment is also
showing up outside of
skate class. There are a
few kids whose self-esteem was pretty low
coming in, says Mullen. I feel like being
involved in skating, and having something
to be good at, has made them happier kids.
And happier kids do better in school. He
hopes that the skateboard program, with
the help of its sponsors, will eventually be
able to offer college scholarships as a
reward for academic performance.
New Tricks
The success of East Side Communitys
skate program has attracted followers.
A few blocks downtown from East Side
High, on the fenced-in rooftop of the New
Design High School, Rohan and Open
Road have started their second skate
class. The walls of the
New Design skate-
park are decked out
with the paintings of
local grafti artists
as part of an ongoing
exhibition curated by
the schools dean,
Jesse Pais. The grafti
art plus the skate-
boarding, they are just
more tools to keep the
kids engaged and to
make them feel good
about the school they
go to, says Pais.
Thats true for Amara
Serrano, a junior at New Design. She grew
up in a family of skateboarders but never
got on a board herself until she enrolled in
skateboard PE class. My uncle and my
cousins skate, she says. I used to ask my
little cousins to help me, but they
never thought I really wanted to learn.
But I would be committed if I had some
instruction. So, I am psyched to try
it now.
Rohan believes that the lessons his
students at East Side Community and
New Design are learning through skate-
boarding can open many doors down
the road. Skateboarding is a giant
industry, and it offers a lot to the kids,
he says. They can be professional skate-
boarders, graphic designers, or clothing
designers. They can make magazines,
shoot photos, do videos. There is pretty
much an endless landscape of job
opportunities within the skateboarding
industry.
So now when the days skateboarding
lesson ends and the students (reluctantly)
turn in their helmets and boards before
they head off to their next class, they are
energized and ready to take on the next
challenge, whatever that may be.
Even though he is the teacher, Rohan is still
able to nd time to sneak in a few tricks
between classes.
Drills like the wall crawl are
fun ways to teach balance.
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