SGMA said that currently, many members of Congress want to cut PEP (the Carol M. White Physical Education Program) from the Fiscal Year 2012 budget. As such, officials said that the future of PEP “has never been in greater jeopardy, yet there has never been a greater time of need for this program. While PEP funding for this year is secure, next year may be a different story.”
PEP is a competitive grant program that gives school districts and community based organizations the resources to provide students with support for physical education.
The trade organization pointed to results of a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that indicate that nearly 90 percent of U.S. high school students fail to meet the bare minimum exercise requirements for healthy living. It also noted that the $80 million target for PEP in Fiscal Year 2012 is less than 0.2 percent of the 2012 budget for the Department of Education.
On May 25, the U.S. House Education & Workforce Committee approved legislation to eliminate 41 education programs from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in FY2012. The list of programs to be eliminated includes PEP.
“The feedback from the CDC on the fitness levels of our children is the reason why PEP is so important,” said SGMA President Tom Cove. “The PEP program is working well in the communities where the funding has been received. The importance of PEP will continue to be a priority of SGMA’s day of advocacy next spring, National Health Through Fitness Day.”
For the current year, the Department of Education recently announced that $78 million in PEP funding has been approved. The Education Department is currently processing approximately 450 PEP grant applications and plans to award roughly 70 new multi-year PEP grants later this summer.
