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Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and
Physical Education to School
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Educating the Student Body
status of and trends in public policies regarding school-based physical activ-
ity. Public policies are an effective tool for influencing behavioral changes at
the population level as opposed to the individual level, and have been shown
to have significant long-term effects on population
health and health behav-
iors. Examples include fluoridating drinking water and requiring the use of
seat belts in motor vehicles (CDC, 1999). At present, there are no federal
mandates on physical activity and physical education in schools. Therefore,
this section presents the committee’s findings on state policies, including
both statutory (legislative) and administrative (regulatory) laws, and school
district wellness policies, as well as their implementation and effectiveness.
National surveillance systems contain quantitative data on the strength
and comprehensiveness
of these policies, developed using systematic and
reliable coding systems. These data are useful for tracking both progress
and changes in codified public policies of time and across jurisdictions.
Table 2-3 lists available sources of information on policies regarding
school-based physical activity. The School Health Policies and Practices
Study (SHPPS; Burgeson et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2007) and the
Shape of
the Nation Report (NASPE and AHA, 2010, 2012) provide relevant policy
information collected through self-report surveys; the National Association
of State Boards of Education’s (NASBE’s)
State School Health Policy
Database supplements the SHPPS with additional information on the exis-
tence of relevant state laws and policies; and the National Cancer Institute’s
Classification of Laws Associated with School Students (C.L.A.S.S.; Mâsse
et al., 2007) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–supported Bridging
the Gap program (www. bridgingthegapresearch.org) compile state laws
and then apply scoring systems to rank the laws in comparison with
national standards and recommendations. Bridging the Gap also conducts
the largest ongoing nationwide evaluation of the con gressionally mandated
school district wellness policies (Bridging the Gap, 2013b). The data on
district wellness policies are coded using the same schemes as those used
for state laws, thus enabling multilevel evaluations of the impact of district
policies and state laws on school practices and student behaviors.
The SHPPS compiled information collected
through self-report surveys
for use in assessing school-based physical education and physical activity
policies and practices at the state, district, school, and classroom levels.
State-level data were collected from education agencies in all 50 states and
the District of Columbia. District and school-level data were collected from
nationally representative samples of public school districts and public and
private elementary and secondary schools. Classroom-level data were col-
lected from teachers of randomly selected classes.
The Shape of the Nation survey collects the following information
on physical education: (1) time
requirements; (2) high school gradua-
tion requirements; (3) exemptions/waivers and substitutions; (4) physical
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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
71
TAbLE 2-3 Data Sources for Policies Related to School-Based Physical
Activity
Data Source
Time Period
Method of Assessment
Levels
School Health
Policies and
Practices Study
2000, 2006
Self-report surveys,
separate
respondents for
each level
State (census), district,
school, classroom
(nationally representative
sample)
Shape of the
Nation
Every few
years from
1987 to 2012
Self-report surveys,
state physical education
coordinators
State (census)
National
Association of
State Boards of
Education’s State
School Health
Policy Database
Updated
regularly
since 1998
Collection
of laws and
policies
State (census)
C.L.A.S.S.
2003-2008,
biennially
starting in
2010
Coded (scored) state laws
State (census)
Bridging the Gap
2006-2012
Coded (scored) state laws
State (census), district
(nationally representative
sample)
activity; (5) local school wellness policy; (6) standards, curriculum, and
instruction; (7) class size; (8) student assessment and program accountabil-
ity; (9) body mass index (BMI) collection; (10) physical education teacher
certification/licensure; (11) national board certification in physical educa-
tion; and (12) state physical education coordinator requirements (NASPE
and AHA, 2012).
The NASBE State
School Health Policy Database, begun in 1998 and
continuously updated (http://www.nasbe.org/healthy_schools/hs/index.php),
provides a summary description of the most recent state-level laws,
legal
codes, rules, regulations, administrative orders, mandates, standards, and
resolutions (see Appendix C for a summary table of the laws); it does not
provide historical information on laws that were in place prior to 1998.
The C.L.A.S.S. and Bridging the Gap databases vary from the NASBE
database by providing scores related to the strength of policies rather than
the actual policy language. They also provide historical data by year, which
allows for the examination of change in state laws over time. The C.L.A.S.S.
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