In the fall of 2012, the PYFP was relaunched as a mechanism to promote health-related fitness within school-based physical education programs nationwide. The PYFP is a comprehensive fitness education program that focuses on three key areas: (a) PD for physical educators, (b) health-related fitness assessment, and (c) recognition of schools and students. The program adopted FitnessGram^® to place greater emphasis on the identification of health risk and revised the long-standing student recognition component associated with youth fitness testing in the U.S. to promote the achievement of healthy levels of fitness. To initiate the PYFP implementation, a funding opportunity was made available to public and private schools nationwide. The funding provided schools with supplemental resources to address the three key areas of PD, assessment, and recognition. Accordingly, this study examined the key events of the PYFP implementation, as an indicator of the fitness education program's feasibility to initiate school change.

Based on the theory of organizational change, the research team constructed a logic model to articulate and justify the stated evaluation strategy procedure (Fig. 2). The model outlines the variables of interest and stages in which each was investigated from Inputs to Behavioral Outcomes and Intermediate Outcomes. In accordance with the theory of organizational change, the inputs mirror factors aligned with the unfreezing phase; behaviors align with the changing phase, and intermediate outcomes can be assimilated to refreezing as sustainable change. As such, the Inputs are comprised of the main events intended to create awareness of the PYFP and generate a sense of fulfillment and security in the changes it promotes for teachers, students, and schools. Further, the Behavioral Outcomes are defined by the participants' level of action (i.e. the percent of virtual courses completed or the use of awards) based on Input factors. Finally, the Intermediate Outcomes capture student progress that results from changes implemented by the completion of the inputs and behavioral factors and indicate outcomes associated with increased fitness (i.e., the percentage of students who are in the Healthy Fitness Zone^® (HFZ), which are criterion-referenced standards of fitness that represent good health by age and gender). This basis of organizational change, identifying Inputs to first prompt Behavioral Outcomes, and then Intermediate Outcomes exemplifies the underlying assumption of the PYFP. That is, teachers who gain an awareness of the need for enhanced physical education through the PYFP and the received supports, such as PD or access to resources, will be more likely to accurately administer the FitnessGram^® assessments and use these evaluations to recognize their students and to drive their instructional practice. It is hypothesized that the use of the PYFP is an effective strategy to increase student fitness and reduce the risk for preventable disease as it provides the viable resources of student exposure to health-centered curriculum and teacher access to PD on effective, evidence-based instruction.

The study of fitness has an extensive history of change and progression, such as the creation of youth-based fitness assessment, adoption of student recognition, and ultimately the provisions for family inclusion (see https://www.hhs.gov/fitness/about-pcsfn/our-history/index.html). However, rising rates of overweight and obesity, lack of physical activity, and concerns over associated health risks warrant continued research and investigation of viable fitness education interventions. Further, the need for national surveillance has emerged, which begins with school-level implementation of fitness assessment (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2012). Finally, because little is known about the motivational aspects of increasing studenťs health, further investigation of the organizational effects of using student recognition is necessary.

Through the PYFP funding opportunity, 374 schools received materials including the FitnessGram^® software, student recognition items, Physical Best texts, and virtual training courses. A physical education teacher at each school was required to complete all of the offered training. Sixty percent of the schools were elementary, 35% secondary, and 5% K-12 schools. Student enrollment ranged from 62 to 2900, with the number of certified physical education teachers in each school's correspondingly extending from one (n = 180) to 28 (n = 1). The number of minutes per week of physical education ranged from one time per week for 25 min, at the elementary level, up to 400 min per week with daily, blocked scheduled physical education on the secondary level. Eighty-two percent of the schools reported the administration of some form of student fitness assessment prior to this investigation. Schools represented 48 states.

The primary instruments used in this study included site visits and interviews. Artifacts, including the PYFP funding application and the Fitness Education Index, were also collected.

Teachers learn through the virtual PD and via the PYFP website that student recognition is an essential piece to encouraging lifelong fitness among students. Teacher interviews with fully implementing teachers brought to light an unexpected finding. The use of the PYFP awards for student recognition extended beyond the influence of individual student awareness to collectively shape the perceptions of the school. As explained by teachers, including the PYFP recognition component for student performance brought unexpected notoriety and acceptance of physical education throughout the school.

One teacher said, “Our kids have an awards day at the end of the year, and they and the teachers dress nice. Their parents show up. The teachers get to stand up and call up their students to receive the awards” (Teacher 12, site visit). This was the first time the subject matter of physical education was acknowledged at the academic awards ceremony. Another teacher commented about how she used the fitness assessment as an incentive and as a way for students to set goals, “Of course the awards helped. They liked getting those certificates. It gave them something to work for. They set goals. So, that is how we trained in class, by the components we were taught in the FitnessGram^® training [virtual courses].” She added later in the day, “Oh, it was so cool. The awards were on the web for everyone to see. Just like the academic awards.” For the first time, student performance within physical education was publicly acknowledged. Finally, when another teacher was asked how they disseminate their PYFP awards, they explained that they are given out in an assembly with all other academic awards. One teacher commented that by giving awards for all scholastic accomplishments, they intentionally set out to “show the balance and equity in physical education awards to things like the math awards and most improved student awards” and went on to state, “We try and put it (PYFP) on an equal plane with other things we recognize kids for” (Teacher 16, site visit).

As a component of the virtual PD, the Fitness Education Index prompted teachers to reflect on their current pedagogical strategies as well as the resources they utilized in conjunction with those strategies. Through this reflection, it was identified that teachers increased their self-awareness of best practices and therefore, it helped teachers identify ways to enhance their current pedagogy by adopting those practices. Further, based on this newly acquired knowledge, teachers set forth as advocates for resources (e.g., assistance with the imputation of student data) necessary to providing quality fitness assessment and education in their schools. One identified barrier was the lack of physical education, activity, and fitness.

The resources, such as Physical Best books and student awards were made available through this funding opportunity. As stated in the Fitness Education Index by one teacher, “Our district has no funding for PE PD, yet all of our PE staff can participate in this training.” Further, teachers reported that the virtual courses were “relevant PD for physical education teachers” (Teacher 2, interview) and courses were “user-friendly. I could go back and review and was able to start and stop. Because my incorrect answers were shown, I was able to learn from them” (Teacher 3, virtual course evaluations). Another teacher commented, “I really liked them (the courses) because they got really into depth and detail regarding the FitnessGram^® testing… I actually learned more things within the courses…I actually had clarification (on assessment), and I really enjoyed the feedback at the end of the courses” (Teacher 15, site visit). The virtual training and Physical Best resources empowered teachers to request team time or release time from teaching responsibilities so all of the physical education teachers could work together to input data from the administration of the FitnessGram^® assessments, print FitnessGram^® reports, or plan recognition ceremonies.

Additionally, PD increased teacher buy-in through unfreezing the status quo. As stated by one teacher in regards to the outcomes of receiving PD, “I feel very comfortable delivering the PYFP content after all the training from PYFP and the training I have gotten from my district…it has prepared me for testing the students…and now as a department we all help one another…now if we see a fellow teacher not doing something correctly we talk to them about it…we want them on board so that we are all conducting the assessments consistently” (Teacher 18, site visit). As indicated by this teacher, PYFP and the PD it provided gave teachers the efficacy to deliver quality fitness education within their own classroom, and also ensure that their team of fellow PE teachers offer the same. One educator noted another way in which PYFP facilitated change in the status quo, explaining that the PD not only helped them discover the depth of their role, but it also brought credibility school-wide. “We are not gym teachers, we are physical educators, so there are elements of physical fitness, elements of nutrition and health, there’s an element of the team and an individual sport, and they all fit together…now I can tell a math teacher that physical education is just as important…this (PYFP) is about physical education and how it is important” (Teacher 13, site visit).

All twenty teachers interviewed suggested they were willing and ready to serve as champions to advocate for physical activity opportunities, more physical education, and achievement of the fitness standards as a means of minimizing health risk. One teacher stated that PYFP “gives me validity, it is why we are here. We love team sports; we love the activity, but really our purpose is this (PYFP).... it sets it up; thaťs why iťs (PYFP) awesome” (Teacher 7, interview). As this teacher noted, the PYFP gave teachers the opportunity to become fitness experts equipped with knowledge about how to enhance curriculum beyond sports by incorporating fitness content and assessment into daily lessons (Teacher 19, site visit).

Teachers were eager to recruit peers not only from physical education but other disciplines to become involved. “The key is other specialist teachers,” commented Teacher 6, during an interview, thus confirming that art, music, and special education teachers may be most aware of the need for physical activity in schools. Because physical education, art, music, theater, and dance are often block scheduled in the same class period, which rotates every 4–6 weeks, if needed, additional time for physical education could be secured by rearranging the schedule. One teacher explained that it’s about negotiations among specials teachers. “Specials will clump together to help each other…kids get pulled out all the time, sometimes (during assessments) especially this week we (PE) will ask them (the kids) to go tell the (music) teacher that we’ll have you go first, and then we'll send you to band…so they miss a little music but its ok, because we negotiate so its ok” (Teacher 16, site visit).

Classroom generalist teachers can also serve as facilitators of the PYFP. Teacher 5 stated, “all teachers need this kind of PD, not just PE teachers.” Utilizing general classroom teachers and other school specialists as resources is a strategic way to develop a health-related fitness culture that begins with physical education but then supported and strengthened by the whole school community.

This study provided insight into the efficacy of PYFP implementation uncovering the vital role of school and teacher readiness to unfreeze the status quo as it relates to transformation and moving toward a shared culture of health. Without school and teacher level readiness to promote and recognize student fitness, organizational change within schools cannot occur. This may present far reaching implications given the introduction of accountability standards in Canada and the UK in 1997 as well as nationally driven school reform initiatives as of 2001 such as the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top that have placed school leaders, administrators and teachers under pressure to significantly improve student academic achivement (Darby, 2008). Given that these initiatives have prioritized core curriculum, reform efforts have given little consideration for how we maximize physical and health education, despite the known importance of health regarding a student’s readiness to learn (Basch, 2011). Taken collectively, the lesson we can take from the findings presented in this study coupled with the known challenges of academically driven reform initiatives, is that we may need to reconceptualize what effective school reform looks like, and as we do so, we need to include teachers in the process so that they are active players in the transformation. This is especially relevant for physical educators as reform efforts to date have lacked consideration for physical education. Physical educators must be willing to advocate for their inclusion in the process, navigating their way among the existing tensions between core and specials content, and perhaps the only way to facilitate this is by evaluating factors related to quality programming.

Another important lesson learned from the current study is that evaluation has the capacity to shed light on the disparate funding within the school setting. Our findings support literature suggesting a lack of funding globally for physical education (Hardman, 2008) despite its potential to create a more holistic school culture (Storey et al., 2016). However, we also learned that programs such as PYFP are a feasible and cost-effective way for schools to invest in physical education programming, providing virtual PD and curriculum resources for teachers as well as student recognition through awards. This small investment in physical education may reap high rewards given that the PYFP holds the potential to deliver quality programming that is not only accepted in the gym but also across the larger school community (Lawson, 2005).

Perhaps the greatest lesson learned from the current study is that evaluation should not be siloed. The work of the current study evaluated the capcity of PYFP to prompt organizational change utilizing qualitative methods to understand the contextual factors influencing PYFP implementation and its impact on the school culture. In doing so, we learned that evaluation approaches must be comprehensive. That is, it is not enough to evaluate one aspect of school curriculum or culture. Future evaluations need to explore the synergy between all inputs and consider how their interactions may prompt organizational change in schools. This is important because comprehensive evaluation approaches may provide a better understanding of how programming beyond core content such as physical education contributes to overall student performance. In an era where reform initaitives are academically driven, evidencing the intersections between core and specials curriculum may facilitate a reprioritization of physical education and programs such as the PYFP.

By definition evaluation typically seeks to “form an idea of the amount, number, or value of” (Webster, 1999). That is, evaluation typically seeks to quantitatively measure stregnths and weaknesses of a given phenomenon. That stated, perhaps one of the most significant strengths of this study is that we sought to go beyond surveillance and quantification of program adoption and implementation. Instead, we prioritized the teacher voice seeking to better understand through the school-based experiences how the PYFP was being implemented and what that meant to physical educators, students and the larger school community.

Our investigation into the antecedents of organizational change also shed light on current practice and the triumphs and trials related to refocusing physical education and other programs to be more health-related within the school context. As determined by these findings, there were some valuable outcomes from the provision of PD and other resources (i.e., student awards, FitnessGram^®). The affect of student recognition was far-reaching. Expectedly, some schools continue to struggle to change as a lack of technological and administrative support inhibited progress. Additionally, we are still working to identify those things that must be considered before administering a school-based fitness assessment, so that it will foster desired outcomes among the school community. Furthermore, the PYFP resources and one academic year were not enough to overcome local and state barriers. Perhaps in the second year of the implementation process, the present supports will evolve and facilitate more considerable change, thereby evidencing the full potential of the PYFP.

Identification of the antecedents of organizational change should permit educators and scholars alike to target schools and teachers who exhibit the highest readiness for a structural and personal modification that focus on student health as a valued learning outcome.