Congratulations to Monica Lounsbery for putting on an outstanding Southwest District AAHPERD (American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance) conference in Las Vegas, June 26-29. The theme was "It takes a village to move a child in school."  Monica's vision was to bring new partners to physical educators' efforts to help children become more active now and prepared for a lifetime of activity and health. Physical Education (PE) and recess are on the decline in schools, because in the era of high-stakes testing, everything that is not seen as contributing to core content knowledge is considered expendable. Thus, bringing new partners and new strategies to help achieve the mission of active, healthy, and well-educated children is a good idea.

Two themes quickly became apparent. First was the emphasis on providing physical activity opportunities before, during, and after the school day, and using strategies supported by evidence. The timing of this theme was very fortunate, because it was completely consistent with reports from the Institute of Medicine (report), US Department of Health and Human Services (report), and an ALR-commissioned paper by David Bassett. All of these reports showed how schools can contribute to students' physical activity through well-designed recess, active transport to school, youth sports, classroom activity breaks, and joint use agreements, in addition to PE.

The second theme was that, in addition to well-known PE experts like Robert Pangrazi and Thom McKenzie, speakers included less-familiar voices from diverse disciplines. Examples were neuro-cognitive researcher Darla Castelli, leisure and recreation researcher Michael Kanters, education advocate Megan Wolf, pediatrician Kristine Madsen, principals Ryan McTeague and Chris Lounsbery, former Nevada state senator Valerie Weiner, and civil rights lawyer Robert Garcia. I was pleased to represent a public health perspective.

It is no coincidence that these disciplines, and even some of these speakers, are familiar to attendees at ALR Conferences. Monica was inspired by ALR and the power of bringing together the different ideas and skills of many disciplines. Her key innovation was to invite people to attend as a "village" of teachers, school administrators, and legislators so they could jointly plan improvements in school physical activity strategy. These state-based teams had the opportunity to work together during the Conference. This innovative meeting attracted the attention of the national AAHPERD, and President Gale Wiedow attended. I encourage him to try some of the innovative approaches at the national AAHPERD conference.

Monica Lounsbery, on a hike in the Red Rocks outside of Las Vegas.