Gym rat

NEWS THAT A FORMER gym teacher in Florida has pleaded guilty to six counts of bribery for charging students $1 for the privilege of skipping gym class raises all the usual questions about corruption and dishonesty in high and low places -- plus one more: Only $1? He could have charged way more.

According to Terence Braxton, he is not the only teacher at the Pensacola, Fla., middle school who saw all those gym-shy students as a possible revenue stream. He said he got the idea from another teacher who had a similar business plan the previous year and who has since resigned. (She has also been charged.) And, in truth, the business never quite scaled, as the venture capitalists say; Braxton is said to have collected only about $230 from just six students.

Braxton, who resigned shortly after school officials learned of his scheme, will serve three years of probation and will have to perform 300 hours of community service. He must also provide restitution to the students and will have to give up his Florida teaching certificate, though he’ll be able to teach in other states. And he’s planning to. “It was a mistake; my first job. I regret doing it,” he told the Pensacola News Journal. As long as he doesn’t go looking for a new job teaching, say, business ethics.

Braxton might be forgiven for his slipshod attitude toward physical fitness for kids. He did, after all, teach in Florida, the state that popularized the online physical education course in which high school students can fulfill their phys-ed requirement without ever setting foot in a gym or on a field. Instead, they keep an online log of their supposed exercise. And online, as they say, no one knows you’re a dog. Or, in this case, no one knows you’re a lazy high school kid who records 50 push-ups in your log for each order of French fries you polish off.

And online, it almost goes without saying, the students don’t have to pay any bribes. At least that’s one way to avoid the Braxton problem.