Uptown Skate School

Among local skateboarders, the spot on 12th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A where wooden ramps and metal-topped ledges are set up most afternoons is known as 12A. For the 9th and 10th graders of East Side Community High School, it is gym class.

What started in February as an after-school program run by a volunteer has turned into what school officials believe is New York City’s only skateboarding class for credit, one of a range of offbeat physical education electives like dancing, martial arts and spinning newly available in city schools. At 10:30 most mornings, 22 students pour onto the school’s basketball court and, after a few standard exercises, begin maneuvering on borrowed boards.

“I just wanted to try a new sport,” said Diana Castro, a 15-year-old sophomore, who had never skateboarded before taking the class this fall but who now sometimes practices after school, too.

Jade Fellows, another sophomore, said she did not like the standard gym classes offered at the school — or, for that matter, other electives. “We only have, like, art, dance or computer,” Jade said. “I wanted to try this.”

The teacher is Billy Rohan, a professional skateboarder and the director of skateboarding and skate park development for Open Road, a nonprofit organization that has been working with the city since the 1990s to involve potential users in the design of public parks. Because he is not a certified teacher, he is accompanied on the court by Tom Mullen, the assistant principal, or a substitute teacher.

Mr. Mullen said that he had seen an improvement in attitude among the students taking the skateboarding class, and was eager to track whether that might lead to a change in academic performance.