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Trends in State Laws Related to Physical 
Education and Physical Activity
Tables 2-4 and 2-5 show an increase over time in the number of state 
laws addressing physical education, revealing that by school year (SY) 
2011-2012 nearly all states (98 percent) across all grade levels mentioned 
physical education in a state-level law. However, very few states have a 
strong law. Only 10, 2, and 2 percent of laws, respectively, that address 
requirements for elementary, middle, and high schools meet national rec-
ommendations for at least 150 minutes (for elementary schools) and at 
least 225 minutes (for secondary schools) weekly of physical education, 
and virtually no change occurred in these policies from SY 2006-2007 
to SY 2011-2012. Similarly, very little change has occurred across states 

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Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
Status and Trends of Physical Activity Behaviors and Related School Policies
 
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during the past 6 years with respect to requiring daily physical education, 
and most states continue to allow physical education waivers, with the 
exception of 8, 6, and 6 percent of states, respectively, prohibiting them at 
the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Some positive changes in 
state laws have occurred, including steady increases across all grades in the 
number of states requiring that schools promote a physically active lifestyle 
and that physical education be taught by qualified instructors. Some slight 
change even has taken place across all grade levels in the number of states 
requiring a specific teacher-student ratio for physical education classes. 
Currently no states require that at least 50 percent of time spent in 
physical education be devoted to vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical 
activity. Some improvement has occurred over the past 6 years in states 
having a requirement for any percentage of time spent in vigorous- or 
moderate-intensity physical activity in physical education, with elementary 
schools seeing the largest increase in such requirements. Further, fewer 
than one-quarter of all states require physical activity outside of physical 
education for all grade levels, and only about 1 in 5 states require daily 
recess at the elementary level. Requirements for physical activity outside 
of physical education decrease significantly at the middle and high school 
levels, and recess policies apply only to elementary schools. Finally, there 
has been a decline in the percentage of states prohibiting the use of physi-
cal activity as a punishment. Overall, the above trends reveal significant 
opportunities to enact and strengthen state-level physical education and 
physical activity laws.