SB 804 West Virginia Senate · 2026 Regular Session

Removing physical education requirements for certain middle and high school athletes

SB 804 exempts middle and high school students participating in extracurricular sports in "good standing" from mandatory physical education requirements. Specifically, students listed by their coach at the end of each sport season are not required to complete the standard PE classes for that school year (middle school: daily PE for one semester; high school: a full credit for graduation). The bill directly affects athletes who maintain coach-determined good standing in sports. It does not alter overall PE requirements but creates this specific exemption based on athletic participation. The change applies to students in grades 6-12 who meet the coach's criteria during their sport season.

Issues: ✗ Education

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2026

Committee Review

Feb 2026

Senate Passage

Feb 2026

House of Delegates Passage

Governor

Introduced Feb 6, 2026 Last action Mar 8, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced Version → Committee Substitute · 5 edits

MODERATE

The Committee Substitute version of SB 804 expanded the bill's sponsors to include three senators instead of one, updated the reporting date from introduction to committee report, and made several technical corrections throughout the text. The most significant substantive change is the expansion of the physical education exemption for extracurricular athletes, which now explicitly covers high school students in grades 9-12 in addition to middle school students. Additionally, the bill clarifies that the exemption applies to subdivision (3) of the physical education requirements for high school students.

Scope change

The bill's scope was expanded to explicitly include high school students (grades 9-12) in the extracurricular sport exemption from physical education requirements, whereas the original version only referenced middle and high school without specific grade level clarification for the high school exemption.

ELIGIBILITY

Expanded the extracurricular sport exemption to explicitly cover high school students in grades 9-12, clarifying that subdivision (3) physical education requirements do not apply to students on the coach's list during these grades.

TECHNICAL

Corrected formatting and capitalization throughout the document, including changing 'Department of Education' to 'State Department of Education' for consistency and updating year references to include '2006' for clarity.

Added comma after 'more overweight' in the legislative findings section and updated punctuation throughout for consistency.

Changed 'article three-b, chapter twenty-nine-a' to 'provisions of article three-b, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code §29A-3B-1 et seq.' for more precise legal reference.

Updated sponsor information from single Senator Grady to Senators Grady, Deeds, and Taylor, and changed the status from 'Introduced' to 'Committee Substitute' with updated reporting date.

Floor votes · Senate Feb 16, 2026

How they voted

33–0

Passed

Total votes 33

Feb 16, 2026

D Democratic2

2 Yea

100% Yea

R Republican31

31 Yea

100% Yea

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 17, 2026

Committee

To House Education

lower

Feb 17, 2026

Committee

To Education

lower

Feb 17, 2026

Introduced

Introduced in House

lower

Feb 16, 2026

Upper · Passed

Passed Senate (Roll No. 98)

upper

Feb 11, 2026

Upper · Passed

Committee substitute reported

upper

Feb 6, 2026

Introduced

Introduced in Senate

upper

Feb 6, 2026

Committee

To Education

upper

1 primary · 3 co-sponsors