AGAWAM — COVID-19 not only disrupted the traditional learning schedule at Agawam Junior High School (AJHS). It also had a huge impact on the school’s physical education program — for the better.

The pandemic challenged the school’s physical education (PE) staff re-evaluate teaching and learning by developing plans to keep students safe in a physically active environment.

“It forced us to think outside the box,” said PE teacher Sam Lemanski, who has taught gym class at the school for eight years.

Lemanski and the other two PE teachers at the school, Michael Peterson and Nikki Desautels, began teaching students a variety of different no-contact physical activities, such as golf, disc golf and badminton, and expanded their unit on pickleball.

They also developed a partnership with the Agawam Municipal Golf Course. PE students usually walk the short distance from the school to the course to use its facilities to play and practice with donated clubs and equipment.

“COVID[-19] really gave us the opportunity to incorporate a lot of new things into our teaching that we have always talked about doing and now had the chance to,” added Peterson.

It also led to led to a schedule change for how often seventh graders took PE.

“In the past, the schedule didn’t allow for these students to have physical education all year,” said Lemanski. In September, when the school adopted a new schedule, it gave the PE staff the opportunity to offer gym class all year for both grades at the school.

“As PE teachers we have always advocated for more time throughout the year with our seventh graders. Luckily, with some manipulation to the schedule, we now have that,” said Peterson.

While many traditional PE programs focus on popular and competitive sports — which…