HATTIESBURG, MS--Pine Belt principals say a legislative bill to require high school students to learn CPR as part of their physical education requirement is a good idea.
Lawmakers have sent House Bill 432 to Gov. Phil Bryant’s office. It also calls for students in grades 9-12 to learn how to use automated external defibrillators.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Sumrall High School Principal Tess Smith said. “It could easily be incorporated into our P.E. classes because our coaches are already CPR certified.”
Smith said if her students had knowledge of CPR, they could help in emergencies.
The American Heart Association has been working on getting a bill to train students in CPR through the state Legislature since last year, said Katherine Bryant, government relations director for the American Heart Association of Mississippi.
“High school students are willing and able to do (CPR) and to step into a situation where they know they can be of use,” she said. “It’s a great way to put thousands of CPR bystanders into the community.”
The bill would take effect in July.
Bryant said her group would provide a resource tool kit to the Mississippi Department of Education that would include lesson plans and other options for schools to use in teaching CPR to their students. She said the heart association was still working on those options.
Bryant said students would be taught basic hands-on CPR and would not be certified in CPR.
“Knowing how to use basic hands-on CPR is enough to save someone’s life,” she said. “In the time it takes to watch a sit-com, a student can learn to save a life.”
Hattiesburg High School Principal Jermaine Brown said, if the governor signs the bill, he would wait to hear from the state Department of Education before he made any decisions about how CPR was taught at his school.
But Brown said he thought the bill was a good idea.
“Anytime we can be in a position for our students to save a life, it’s a good thing,” he said. “I think it fits right in with the health and physical education component.”
Petal High School Principal Steve Simmons said he thought his school might not struggle with logistics as much as other schools because of the efforts of one of his teachers who got a grant in 2012 to teach CPR to 3,000 of the city’s residents.
Mary Hill used the grant to buy 100 adult mannequins and 100 baby mannequins to use in CPR classes.
And because of Hill’s efforts, most Petal High School students already know CPR.
Senior Angel Young says she is glad she is CPR-certified.
“When someone’s life is in danger, you can’t wait on somebody,” she said. “You have athletes on the field or (students) in the cafeteria. You don’t ever know when something’s going to happen anywhere.”
Simmons said he is in favor of teaching CPR to as many of his students as possible.
“I’ve got 1,200 of them around me,” he said. “I hope they all know CPR if anything happens to me.”
SOURCE: Hattiesburg American