Schriever transistioned fitness assessment responsibility to squadrons.
According to Seth Cannello, 50th Force Support Squadron fitness center director, Schriever’s manning led to the early implementation.
“We do not have enlisted services Airmen or civilian employees working in our facility like a majority of the Air Force. At other bases, fitness assessment cell operations are managed internally. Meaning, fitness center employees are responsible and authorized to conduct official tests,” he said.
At Schriever, the FAC has always relied upon personnel from the wing to conduct fitness assessments.
“When units were authorized to test within their unit, most squadrons decided to test internally,” Cannello said. “However, we did have a few squadrons that wanted to continue to test with a centralized FAC.”
Those remaining squadrons realized testing internally was better for their units as a whole and ended up making the switch to conducting the assessments in-house.
With the changes, commanders will have more control of operating their own testing again, lending itself to the opportunity for an increase in morale, according to Natalie McCoy, 50th Force Support Squadron fitness assessment cell liaison says, when the unit owns the program, they tend to take more pride in it.
“Having unit fitness program managers construct an effective method of conducting tests allows for members to test together in more of a unit setting and support one another through the test,” McCoy said. “When FAC members test with other people that they may or may not know, it’s kind of an individual event. When done at the unit level it becomes more of a team setting even though you have individual results.”
Cannello says although the testing returned to the units, the fitness center will continue to conduct the base’s Unit Fitness Program Managers and Physical Training Leaders program.
“In the past, it was difficult securing the personnel needed to operate the FAC,” he said. “Now that all our squadrons are testing internally, we don’t have to deal with managing the centralized FAC. The transition has been a little rough but I think in the next few months internal testers will have worked out all the kinks and members can expect a fair and consistent Air Force FA.”
Even though the fitness assessment testing responsibility is returning to the units, the standards for Airmen to be prepared for their assessment remains the same. Scoring for the assessment will not change either. Airmen making a score below a 90, will test every six months and Airmen scoring 90 or above will test once a year. For more info, see https://www.afpc.af.mil/Career-Management/Fitness-Program/UnitFA/
| Date Taken: | 02.27.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 03.07.2019 17:12 |
| Story ID: | 313425 |
| Location: | SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 44 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Squadrons take on Fitness Assessments, by TSgt Matthew Coleman-Foster, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
