PEP Overview

Westport Public Schools

Westport is a coastal town located on Long Island Sound in Fairfield County,

Connecticut, 47 miles north of New York City. The community is served by Westport Public

Schools, which includes five elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school.

Westport serves approximately 5,400 students* all of whom will be impacted by our proposed PEP

project. Recently, Westport conducted a comprehensive self-assessment of its current Physical

Education (PE) program, identifying a number of challenges and deficiencies. The self-

assessment process revealed the following: fitness center facilities are dated, contain old

equipment, and are not conducive to multi-faceted fitness programs that meet the individual

needs of students; Physical Education and Health teachers are in need of reference-based

professional development opportunities specific to our programs and equipment; and our current

PE program is not data driven. The district lacks the tools and technologies with which to

continuously and accurately assess our students’ fitness levels and progress.

To address these deficiencies, we are proposing to implement Westport Wellness

Initiative, which will target all K-12 students in our district and will address PEP Absolute

Priorities 1 and 2 a-e.

PEP funds in our district will be used to promote an active lifestyle among students at the

targeted schools and increase their exposure to lifetime activities that we are unable to provide.

Our goal is to increase student activity, healthy eating, fitness and state PE standards

achievement levels to promote lifetime wellness in our community. Project objectives include:

increase the percentage of students at participating schools who achieve 60 minutes of physical

activity on a daily basis (GPRA 1); increase in the percentage of students served by the grant

who meet the standard of a healthy fitness zone as established by the assessment for the

Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) in at least five of the six fitness areas of that

assessment (GPRA 2); and increase the percentage of students at participating schools who

consumed fruit two or more times per day and vegetables three or more times per day (GPRA 3).

In addition, we have included project-specific outcomes to increase families’ knowledge of

fitness and nutrition concepts; increase the percentage of students who have a healthy body mass

index (BMI); and increase PE teachers’ knowledge of evidence-based practices and strategies for

improving students’ health, nutrition and fitness outcomes. The activities and strategies we are

proposing to implement represent a true community-based collaboration that will result in

meaningful, sustainable improvements to our students’ health, nutrition and fitness outcomes.

* 5,400 students at the time of submitted PEP application