New PE Standards Coming to Lafayette Parish Schools

LAFAYETTE, La. — Louisiana students will spend more class time actually moving during physical education starting with the 2027-2028 school year, after the state education board approved revised K-12 PE standards this week. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education signed off on the update Wednesday, capping a review process the Louisiana Department of Education began more than a year ago.

State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley said the changes are meant to give students skills they can use well beyond graduation. Research consistently shows the benefits of personal fitness on long-term health, and the new standards are built to reflect that, according to the department’s announcement.

The update also picked up formal backing from the Physical Education Content Standards Steering Committee and the Superintendents’ Advisory Council before reaching BESE for a final vote.

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What The New Standards Actually Change

The core shift is from knowing to doing. Under the old standards, a student might be asked to name a movement skill. Under the revised version, students have to demonstrate it.

Three changes stand out. Skills are now designed to build on each other across grade levels instead of resetting each year, so a movement taught in elementary school is meant to carry forward into middle and high school PE. The standards are also written to avoid mandating specific equipment or facilities, which gives teachers room to adapt lessons to whatever gym, field, or classroom space they actually have. And students now face age-appropriate fitness assessments starting in kindergarten.

Presidential Fitness Test Returns to Louisiana Classrooms

The standards rework follows a 2025 executive order from President Trump re-establishing the Presidential Fitness Test nationally, and a related directive from Gov. Jeff Landry that same year pushing state agencies to work the fitness test into Louisiana schools.

The new fitness assessments, which begin in kindergarten, are designed to measure the same categories as the Presidential Fitness Test, and the department plans to recommend schools actually use that test through a resource guide for school systems.

a group of girls sitting on a mat — Photo by Brett Wharton on Unsplash

That’s separate from recess. A 2023 law requires every Louisiana public school serving grades K-5 to provide at least 15 minutes of unstructured recess daily. The PE standards govern classroom instruction, while the recess law covers unstructured free play, and schools now have to satisfy both requirements on the same school day.

What It Means for Lafayette Parish Students

Lafayette Parish already runs an active physical education program. LPSS fields health and PE instructors across its schools under Jared LeBlanc, the district’s Director of School Safety and Physical Education, and the district describes its fitness meet as the largest in Louisiana, with its elementary fitness team finishing second statewide among 27 public school parishes, according to LPSS’s own PE program page.

That existing infrastructure could put Lafayette Parish in a decent position heading into 2027-2028, since the district already runs the kind of active-participation, competition-oriented programming the revised state standards are built around. Louisiana schools, including LPSS, are also separately subject to Revised Statute 17:17.1, which requires public schools serving any of the grades kindergarten through eight to provide at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each school day, on top of both the new PE standards and the 15-minute recess law.

How We Got Here

The review that produced these standards started in 2025 as part of a routine seven-year cycle required under BESE policy. The previous PE standards had been in place since 2017.

More than 140 people applied to take part in the review, and the department picked 26 educators and stakeholders to serve on workgroups, with 11 of them also sitting on a steering committee that guided the process. That group included classroom teachers, health professionals, higher education faculty, and other education stakeholders from across the state.

The department released a full draft of the standards for public comment in March 2026. Feedback largely praised the added clarity and the push toward active participation, though some commenters raised concerns about whether schools have the facilities and instructional time to pull it off.

Implementation Timeline for Louisiana Schools

The Department of Education plans to roll out professional learning for PE teachers this school year, including in-person training sessions held around the state along with training videos schools can use on an ongoing basis. A standards resource guide with examples, definitions, and implementation guidance is still being developed.

Standards and curriculum aren’t the same thing. The state sets standards, or what students are expected to learn at each grade level. School systems, including LPSS, still choose their own curriculum, the actual lesson plans and materials teachers use to get students there. The state reviews instructional materials to help districts make that pick, but the classroom-level decisions stay local.

Schools won’t be required to implement the new standards until the 2027-2028 school year, giving LPSS and other Acadiana-area districts about a year to plan for the shift.

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