Background/Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the adoption of district and school level physical education (PE) policies and their association with PE environmental variables and PE and recess time in elementary schools.
Method Key informants in 65 schools from 9 states completed (a) the School Physical Activity Policy Assessment (S-PAPA) instrument to assess district and school level policy and related school environmental variables and (b) the Physical Activity Record for Classes (PARC) to record student time in PE and recess.
Analysis/Results Correlation was used to examine relationships between district and school level policies, PE environmental variables, and PE and recess time.
We found substantial variability in physical activity (PA) program minutes. Mean total weekly PA time was 209 minutes (SD=59), with 70% (146 min; SD=49.0) accrued from recess and 30% (63 min; SD=30.4) from PE. District PE policies were more prevalent than school level PE policies. Few policies were significantly related to either weekly PE or recess minutes. However, PE policies were related to a number of school PE environmental variables and several of these were predictors of PE and recess time.
Conclusions Results suggest that district PE policy adoption may serve as a catalyst for school PE policy adoption but the translation of policies from the district to the school level is not 100%. More PE environmental variables were associated with district rather than school level policies. Path analyses in future studies could help decipher specific dependencies of policies, school environments, and time in PA.