Hawaii’s public education system joined a national program in the last school year to provide after-school activities to middle school students. Now it is taking a positive step in injecting sports into the program at several participating schools next fall. The addition is badly needed, as physical education classes too often have taken a back seat to other facets of growth in recent years.

Founded by former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1992, After-School All-Stars now provides enrichment, health and fitness activities to more than 81,000 middle school students at 453 schools across the United States.

With a combination of federal grants and private donations, Hawaii began taking part at the beginning of the last school year, with activities offered from 3 to 6 p.m.

"Every child has a unique interest and certain talents," said Keith Amemiya, a state Board of Education member.

Amemiya’s background as executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association motivated him to add a significant sports program to the state’s After-School All-Stars curriculum, at a cost of $807,000 entirely in donations to pay for a three-year pilot program.

The national program is aimed at benefiting the 70 percent of U.S. children whose parents work outside the home, leaving their children unsupervised by adults at the end of the school day.

The program’s recipients have shown improvement in grades, test scores and school attendance and a drop in criminal activity.

In Hawaii, middle-school students will take part in after-school sports at schools including Waianae Intermediate and Nanakuli High and Intermediate on Oahu and Kau High/Pahala Elementary (a K-12 school), Keaau Middle School and Pahoa High/Intermediate on Hawaii island.

The students will not be subject to tryouts or cuts for football, basketball, volleyball and soccer teams, with participation focusing on participation, not on winning, Amemiya said.

The sports activities will be incorporated into the present After-School All-Stars program. Students must maintain a 2.0 grade average and attend a year-round, academic-based element of After-School All-Stars.

When not playing sports in the after-school program, they must take part in the academic facet, which includes classroom-style instruction, not merely monitoring school-time homework.

The activities should help to counter middle-school children’s increasingly sedentary lifestyles. While Hawaii’s climate is conducive to exercise, a survey last year found that 40 percent of the state’s public middle-school children spend at least three hours on school nights watching television or consumed by video games or computers.

In sports as in other curricula, Amemiya is right in observing that middle-school years are as formative as other stages in assuring that children are appropriately engaged and involved in after-school activities. The broadening of the existing post-school program should put the participating children on the right path physically and emotionally.