What Is the Role of Physical Fitness in Kindergarten?

My kindergartener has joined the school running club.  Every Tuesday afternoon, my daughter, her teacher, a small army of parent volunteers, and kids from all grade levels across the school gather in the gymnasium, walk together to a nearby county park, run laps, cool down with water and snacks, and walk back together to the school playground.  After her first week, I asked her how she liked the running part of the running club, and she gave me a "thumbs up" and said, "It was great!"  After she returned from running, her exhilaration extended to an additional hour of playing, running, climbing, and jumping on the playground with her friends.  We returned home two hours after the final school bell, happy, tired, and ready to settle down the remainder of the evening's routine activities.

In our local school district, each elementary school is staffed with at least one full-time P.E. teacher.  With a full time P.E. teacher on staff, the students at my daughter's elementary school participate in P.E. class once a week as part of the weekly "specials" rotation.  P.E. is one of the highlights of the week at school for my daughter, and it ranks first in the order of favorites among the specials (which included media, music, and art).  Our school district states that the goal for all students is to "be physically fit and have a mindset that values physical activity and its benefits in sustaining healthy lifestyles."  According to the curriculum guide for Physical Education in our school district, P.E. class is designed to promote physical activity and physical skillfulness, along with cognitive and social growth for kindergartners.  


With these lofty goals for the students in our district, how has it come to be that only one 45 minute period a week is deemed sufficient to engender "a mindset that values physical activity" among the incoming class of kindergartners?  Perhaps my school district tacitly presumes that recess is a part of the physical education umbrella.  As such, along with one 45 minutes block a week my daughter and her classmates are released onto the playground, weather permitting, for 25- 30 minutes each day.  Yet, I am left wondering how 30 minutes a day, plus one 45 minute block a week, can constitute a meaningful physical fitness program?  I do appreciate how my daughter's school community is working conscientiously to nurture students' understanding of the importance of physical activity.  As such, it appears that the parents and teachers who are sponsoring the running club are supplementing the weekly P.E. and daily recess offerings in order to model for students what a commitment to physical fitness can look like, and to provide students with the opportunity to experience communal movement.    


I have large aspirations for my daughter's physical development in the years ahead.  I want her to continue to enjoy exploring the world through the movement and use of her body, along with the engagement of her brain and imagination.  I want her to play on an athletic team and to learn teamwork and discipline.  I want her to keep dancing as long as she experiences the joy of rhythm.  I want her to learn to swim the crawl stroke and to be able to carry herself in the water. I want her to spend a lot of time in the outdoors exploring with her five senses and developing her full motor capacities.  And I want her to build up her physical strength, stamina, and flexibility.    


Therefore, given the minimal opportunities for physical activity during the school  day at my daughter's school, it has become clear to me of the necessity that some significant time be dedicated to physical exploration outside of school.  As such, I have worked to organize our lives so that my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) can stay after school several days a week to romp on the playground with her kindergarten buddies.  Perhaps more than recess or P.E., it is the time after school on the playground that has contributed most to my daughter's physical education and growth this year.  Seven months into kindergarten, my DD1 can now scale the playground wall, jump from a four foot platform, go across the parallel bars hanging by her hands, hang upside down by her knees on the monkey bars, and roll like a log down the hillside.  So my question to those of you who have come before me as parents is:  How do you maintain a commitment to physical fitness in the lives of your children, when the time in school dedicated to this enterprise is so minimal?