The Sonima Foundation has given the Encinitas Union School District about $2 million to teach yoga as a health and wellness program for its students.

ENCINITAS Complaints from a vocal group of parents about an Encinitas school yoga program took a new twist Tuesday when a 14-year-old student asked the Encinitas Union School District board to halt the program for health and safety reasons.

About 20 parents descended on the districts board meeting to support Katie Prince, now an eighth grader at Diegueno Middle School. She tearfully told the board that yoga exercises she performed at Flora Vista Elementary School in the 2012-2013 school year had caused a cartilage tear in both of her hips.

She and her parents told the U-T that she participated in a variety of yoga warm up and stretching exercises over five months that caused the cartilage tear.

I spent a number of nights crying, said Katie, who played soccer and basketball and was nearly a black belt in karate before the injury.

Her parents, Darryn and Karen Prince, said they didnt actually discover the hip problems until Katies seventh grade year at Diegueno Middle School when she continued to complain about pain. Her diagnosis didnt come until late 2013 following visits to a pediatrician and an orthopaedic surgeon.

We didnt know it was coming as a result of yoga until we were told this, said Karen Prince.

The family was joined at Tuesdays meeting by about 20 supporters most of whom were wearing yellow t-shirts with Im for P.E. printed on the front.

Other critics of the school districts yoga program also were in attendance, including lawyer Dean Broyles, who is representing Jennifer Sedlock and others in a lawsuit seeking to toss out yoga on religious grounds. He and district lawyers last week appeared before the Fourth District Court of Appeal to make their arguments. Neither Broyles nor Sedlock spoke at Tuesdays meeting.

The board listened to the comments, but said at the start of the meeting that they would not be responding Tuesday.

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Yoga critics raise health issues