Twelve Seeliger Elementary School students earned National Fitness awards, with Autumn Kalb, a fifth grader, achieving the Presidential Fitness Award. From left, Kari Pryor, principal; Omari Bates, second grade; Mia Luna Mora, first grade; Cheyenne Tookey, fourth grade; Emma Pullman, third grade; Chiara Costella, third grade; Aiyden Davis, third grade; Banyan Lambson, third grade; Isabella Beeson, fifth grade; Lily Blann, fifth grade; Autumn Kalb, fifth grade; and Rayce Malmed, physical education teacher.
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Seeliger Elementary School students showed their grit for the school’s first Presidential Fitness Test since 1991 this spring.
Twelve of the school’s 530 students earned National Fitness awards, with Autumn Kalb, a fifth grader, achieving the Presidential Fitness Award.
“I think what that really kind of highlights is that bringing back the Presidential Fitness Test is really pushing us all,” Seeliger physical education teacher Rayce Malmed said. “We’ve all gotten maybe away from what the original intent was, which was to promote healthy lifestyles.”
Malmed is in his first year as a PE teacher but formerly taught fifth grade with Seeliger’s staff. He enjoys being able to serve a whole school full of students outside the traditional classroom, he said.
“I spent the first month, probably two months, of school outside, and I think that’s really important for kids, too, to have time where they’re just playing and they just get an opportunity to be kids and have some structure around that, too,” he said.
President Trump reinstated the five-part exam assessing fitness levels of children between the ages of 6 and 17 in July. They are ranked by performance according to others of the same sex within their age group. Children ages 10 and up could receive a Presidential Fitness Award, a patch and a certificate if they rank within the 85th percentile.
The test was created during President Eisenhower’s administration. He had been concerned about the physical health of youth. The public expressed mixed reactions throughout the years. Ultimately, President Obama’s administration retired the test in 2013. Obama opted for a Presidential Youth Fitness program that emphasized individual attention to health rather than a competitive drive amongst young people.
Nevada also created a focus on children’s health under Gov. Bob Miller. At the time, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was chair of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and visited Seeliger as a school of choice with Miller to promote youth fitness.
Malmed researched the standards from the original test, some of which last were updated from the 1980s. Students were required to complete five tests for age-appropriate activities measuring strength, endurance, flexibility and physical health in events covering a one-mile run, curl-ups, push-ups, sit-and-reach and timed shuttle runs. For example, the quarter-mile run was not supposed to be administered to anyone older than 8, he said, so fifth graders were running the quarter mile even though the test had recommended a full mile.
“To be in the national ranking, you have to be in the 50th to 85th percentile, and then there was only one Presidential Award winner, which has to be 85th percentile or above,” Malmed said. “Again, these kids were 2026 kids ranked on ‘80s standards.”
Principal Kari Pryor and Vice Principal Ryan Icanberry performed pushups beside the kids, and Malmed said some of the teachers might not have realized how strenuous the Presidential Fitness Test can be.
While the test encourages competition, Malmed said it was important to ensure students are friendly in spirit.
“I think there was a good mix of students who really cared about doing well on this, just like students might want to do well academically,” he said. “And then I think there was a mix of students who were less motivated, but I think seeing their peers earn those awards and kind of having that prestige maybe put some fire to some students for next year.”
