Vision
All children embrace wellness for life.
Mission
PE4life advocates for improved fitness, social behavior, and learning readiness of children by inspiring, empowering, and educating schools and their community partners to be catalysts for change in advancing quality physical education.
About PE4life
PE4life is a regionally-focused non-profit organization with national reach and is dedicated to developing a country of active and healthy children and youth by increasing access to quality physical education. PE4life promotes making physical activity fun and interactive to engage all students. PE4life partners with community, business, and school leaders to facilitate systemic change in the perception and delivery of physical education with the desire to improve the health and wellness of children through quality physical education. PE4life offers professional development and support to educators and administrators who desire to create positive change in their schools and communities.
Programs incorporating PE4life’s Core Principles employ today’s best practices in physical education to inspire and educate all students about the fundamental importance of lifetime physical activity and fitness. PE4life has worked successfully in schools with diverse student populations in a variety of settings. Regardless of the environment, PE4life has been able to support those individuals and groups who wish to be a catalyst for positive change.
PE4life has trained physical education professionals and administrators from 40 states and 9 countries around the world.
The six PE4life Training Sites represent a broad spectrum of students and PE programs. Centers are located in Kansas City, MO; Grundy Center, IA; Indianapolis, IN; Titusville, PA; and Rogers, AR. PE4life has also added Model Sites in regions of expansion to further impact schools and allow the observation of PE4life’s Core Principles in action.
Our Reach
To date, PE4life Program Services have trained 360 teams with over 3,000 educators, administrators and community leaders from 39 states across the country, impacting 2,855 schools, reaching over 2.2 million children.
In the 2009-10 School Year, PE4life Program Services trained 87 teams with 888 educators, administrators and community leaders from 10 states across the country, impacting 278 schools, reaching over 320,000 children.
In the 2008-09 School Year, PE4life Program Services trained 38 teams with 524 educators, administrators and community leaders from 13 states across the country, impacting 179 schools, reaching over 100,000 children.
View PE4life Reach in a larger map
What Makes Us Unique?
PE4life supports getting kids active and healthy by engaging them through fun and interaction. We invite implementation of technology into Physical Education classrooms by encouraging the use of interactive gaming, heart rate monitors, pedometers and other feedback tools.
Enabling a student to monitor their heart rate allows them to observe the direct effect exercise has on the body. Whether they are using interactive gaming equipment or participating in sports, fitness or adventure activities, students learn how to maintain the appropriate intensity of activity to enhance their health. PE4life supports physical educators and connects them to appropriate resources to enhance the delivery and results of their program.
Assessment is a key component to a successful program. PE4life advocates for the incorporation of assessment tools, which can help students and teachers track progress made towards achieving fitness goals. By using innovation and technology to evaluate, plan and monitor a student’s progress, programs incorporating PE4life’s Core Principles are having a positive impact on the health of children.
Read PE4life testimonials.
PE4life Core Principles
We believe a quality physical education program should:
- Offer a variety of fitness, sport, leisure, and adventure activities to all students
- Implement a K-12 standards-based curriculum
- Provide a safe and encouraging learning environment
- Utilize individual assessments
- Incorporate current technology
- Extend PE beyond the walls of the gymnasium
- Ideally, be offered to every child every day
PE4life has a proven record of reversing the trend in this country of inactivity by increasing physical education, which has been proven to impact students’ ability to learn. - Tom Harkin, U.S. Senator