An owner
The State Superintendent of Education was directed to produce an implementation plan. That plan, not the order, is the document that turns a page of policy into a testing calendar a school can follow.
Mississippi · State adoption
Mississippi's Presidential Fitness Test Requirement, Explained
Executive Order 1589 reestablishes the Presidential Fitness Test in Mississippi schools, with implementation in 2026-27 across elementary, middle and high school. Here is what the order assigns, what the published test actually contains, and what to pin down before you schedule anything.
OrderExecutive Order 1589
SignedOct 30, 2025
ImplementationSY 2026-27
LevelsElementary to high school
Where things stand
Mississippi's order at a glance
Mississippi ordered the test back into its schools in the autumn of 2025 and gave the work a named owner and a deadline. The operational detail comes from the implementation plan and from your district.
- Instrument
- Executive Order 1589, signed October 30, 2025
- What it does
- Reestablishes the Presidential Fitness Test in Mississippi schools
- Who was directed
- The State Superintendent of Education, to produce an implementation plan
- Reports to the Governor
- Two, due by June 30, 2026
- Implementation
- The 2026-27 school year
- Levels covered
- Elementary, middle and high school
Last reviewed: August 13, 2026
The order
What Executive Order 1589 sets in motion
Signed on October 30, 2025, the order reestablishes the Presidential Fitness Test in Mississippi schools. What makes it more than a statement of intent is that it hands the work to someone and attaches dates to it.
The State Superintendent of Education was directed to produce an implementation plan, and two reports were due to the Governor by June 30, 2026. Implementation itself lands in the 2026-27 school year and reaches elementary, middle and high school.
For a teacher, the useful way to read that is as a division of labour. The order settles the that and the when. The implementation plan and your district settle the how — which grades, which of the two options in each category, how long a window runs, and whether anything leaves the building.
A clock
Two reports were due to the Governor by June 30, 2026. Reporting to a governor is not the same as reporting on individual students, but it does mean someone upstream is tracking the rollout.
A scope
Implementation covers elementary, middle and high school in the 2026-27 school year. This is not a single-grade pilot, and the high school is usually where the scheduling gets hardest.
The published test
What the test itself contains
The order restores a program; it does not define the events. Those come from the standards published in May 2026: three categories, two options in each, and one event per student per category.
Core & Abdominal Strength
Curl-Ups or Plank
Cardiorespiratory Fitness
One Mile Run or 20m Beep Test
Upper Body Strength
Right-Angle Push-Ups or Pull-Ups
Scoring is against fixed published numbers rather than percentiles. Each age from 6 through 17 and older has its own benchmark for every event, separately for boys and girls, and a student either reaches it or does not. Nothing is graded on a curve and no student's result depends on the rest of the class.
That matters for a district testing all three levels: an elementary sheet and a high school sheet are read exactly the same way, and only the age row changes as students move up. See the full benchmark tables by age in the guide.
Practical steps
What to do now
Four questions worth answering before the first testing day. All four are cheaper to settle in the planning period than in the gym.
Find the implementation plan
The order put a named official in charge of producing one, so there is something to ask for. Ask your district's PE or curriculum lead which version they are working from and whether your school is expected to follow it exactly or adapt it.
Get reporting expectations in writing
Two reports were due to the Governor, which is the kind of thing that eventually turns into a request for numbers from schools. Ask now whether student-level results leave your building, who receives them and in what format — and keep the answer.
Plan a window for each level
Elementary, middle and high school do not share a solution. Elementary can run three stations in one period; middle school needs a gym booking; high school needs to know which classes actually have every student in them. Settle all three before the calendar fills.
Pick the option in each category early
Each category offers two events, and the choice is mostly a facilities question — a measured outdoor course versus a 20-meter indoor lane, a timed hold versus a counted set. Deciding once and applying it school-wide keeps the fall and spring numbers comparable.
Requirements around this program can change as the implementation plan is refined. Confirm current requirements with the Mississippi Department of Education and your district before scheduling, and ask for the reporting answer in writing — whether results are reported upward changes how you have to handle the data.
Take it further
The guide, the letter, and test day
Everything on this site about the 2026 program is free and needs no account.
The full 2026 guideEvery event, the published benchmark tables by age, station plans, and how to score a class of thirty without losing the week.Read the guideJaguar AthleticsThe ITS mobile app conducts the beep-test cadence, the core timers, and the scoring — then prints the certificates. One way to run test day if you would rather not keep the book by hand.See how test day runsParent letter templateA short, plain letter covering what the test is, what gets recorded and what it is not used for. Edit the district name and send.Use the template
The mile is the one event hardware can take off your hands. JagTrax times every finish automatically if you run it as a timed event. See JagTrax