School Health - Physical Fitness Assessment Initiative (PFAI)
The Physical Fitness Assessment Initiative (PFAI) is a program designed to gather physical fitness data from Texas students for analysis to determine the relationship or correlation between student academic achievement, attendance, obesity, disciplinary problems, and school meal programs.
Why PFAI was Created
The Texas Education Code (TEC) §§38.101- 38.104 mandates that the Texas Education Agency complete the following objectives:
- Annually assess the physical fitness of students in grades three or higher in a course that satisfies the curriculum requirements for physical education under Section 28.002(a)(2)(C).
- Adopt an assessment instrument to be used by school districts.
- Compile the results of the physical fitness assessment captured by school districts and provide summary results to the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
- Analyze the results received for each school district to determine whether a relationship exists between student academic achievement levels, attendance levels, obesity, student discipline problems, and school meal programs.
Important Information for 2012-13 School Year:
The information provided below is critical for the proper implementation of the Physical Fitness Assessment Initiative (PFAI) during the 2012-2013 school year. Please read the following information thoroughly.
- Frequently Asked Questions for uploading FitnessGram® data to TEA
- You can review new information related to the FitnessGram® Standards at the Cooper Institute website (outside source).
- Due to changes in federal and state ethnicity codes, schools will not be required to submit ethnicity data.
- If your school wishes to import ethnicity data into FitnessGram®, it will be filtered out as a part of the state data collection, but will still be useable at the local level.
- Human Kinetics will provided the annual update for the FitnessGram® software (outside source), and for web-based users on their website. Notification will be sent through the School Health and Safety listserv when the update is made available each year.
- The PFAI/TEASE system will open on March 1, 2013. Fitness assessment data will be due by 5:00 pm on Friday, June 14, 2013. Submission of campus and district data can occur any time between March 1 and June 14.
- Schools should appoint individuals responsible for submitting PFAI data and ensure that they are equipped with user names and passwords for TEASE. (PDF, 1.4 MB).
- Additional information can be found on the FitnessGram® website (outside source).
- Data on the relationship between student fitness levels and academic performance, attendance, and discipline are available at Cooper Institutes, Our Kids' Health (outside source).
- Additional questions can be emailed to healthandsafety@tea.state.tx.us.
More Information:
For additional information, contact:
Health and Safety
healthandsafety@tea.state.tx.us
1701 North Congress Avenue
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 463-9581
Curriculum Division
curriculum@tea.state.tx.us
(512) 463-9581
Page last modified on 2/6/2013 11:24:47 AM.