Episode 108 Inside HPAI: The Health and Physical Activity Institute

The Health and Physical Activity Institute is an amazing opportunity for teachers, administrators, teachers aides and paraprofessionals to gain valuable tips and training on best practices in Health and Physical Education. Learn more about this annual summer workshop held at James Madison University by listening to this conversation between host Stevie Ray Gray and Dani Almarode, HPE Specialist with the VDOE.

Watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/BY4I4QdeH80

Transcript

0:08

Here's your host, Stevie Ray Gray. Get off of the sidelines and into the cave. I'm Stevie Ray Gray and this is Fit Connection. Welcome back to another episode. Today we're gonna be duking it out while I talk to one of my best good dogs about an amazing professional development opportunity. Let's get moving. I have with me today an awesome PE teacher and one of my best good friends, Dr. Danny Almaro. Danny, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Of course. Now, like I said, we go back like 20-ish years or so, so I know everything about you. But uh, why don't you tell our audience uh your whole name? I think I got it right, uh, where you're at right now and what your uh educational prowess is at the moment, ma'am. Okay, well, um, yes, it has been over 20 years that we've known each other, but I can honestly say I didn't know you in the 1900s, um, as my my kid, you know, the kids these days say. But yes, a little over 20 years ago, um at James Madison University, undergrad, masters together. Um JNU. Yes. Um since then, I taught elementary PE uh in Waynesboro, Virginia. Went back, got another degree because I just thought it would be fun to do. Wink wink. Um, and now I am an adjunct instructor at JMU. But then also the main reason I'm here is the hat that I'm wearing today is the K-12 Health and Physical Education Specialist for the Virginia Department of Education. It's a very big hat that you're wearing. Thank you so much. And in that professional capacity, we're talking about one of, in my professional opinion, the best, most amazing professional development opportunities for health and physical educators, not just in the state of Virginia, but all over the country. We're talking about the Health and Physical Activity Institute or HPAI for short. So, Danny, as one of the uh co-conspirers, I guess, one of the leaders of that, will you please just tell me? Like, I'm somebody who's never been to HPAI before. Uh, like how would you describe this professional development opportunity? Hands down, the best you will ever experience. Well, if but if you've never been, you're missing out. Um, so you definitely need to head to the HPAI website through JMU to check out all the cool things we do. We end up recording this in May, so we're a couple of months ahead of the one in 2026. But if you're watching this afterwards, uh you did miss out, but there are every single year it happens, right? Around the same time every year. Uh-huh. We always go different from other uh professional development opportunities. I think first and foremost is the family feel. Um, not only are there high-level presenters from all across the United States, um, but every year, I think both you and I have been a part of it for over 20 years since we were students at JMU. And I feel as though every year, the biggest piece of feedback we get on the evaluations are feeling like family, um, being welcomed and the camaraderie um between everybody, not just participants, but presenters. We have presenters coming to other sessions and getting down and dirty and playing noodle tag in other sessions. So it's just it is a comfortable space with high quality, high quality um presentations and content. So is that one of the reasons that you think people just keep coming back as of the family aspect? Absolutely. Um, so when you register, you get put on a team. Uh, there are 15 different teams. Shout out to Team Jalapeno and Team Sizzle. And you've got a new team this year. I don't know. Can you announce it yet? Oh, I think we can. Oh, we got the snap, please. Hello Snappy. Oh snap. But I am very fickle, so I change my food group every single, every five years. So I was a blueberry for a while. Then I was a sweet potato, but the leader stays the same. That's this guy right here. But you get placed on a team that has a food as the group, a food group, and then what were you saying? Um, just not only are there the presentations throughout the three days, but interwoven into those three days are team meetings where all of the participants within that team, we meet in a common space, we have a discussion, we do some reflection on you know what we've seen throughout the day in years past. Sometimes, if if you're watching this and you have attended before, you know, maybe 20-some years ago, um teams used to create dances or skits or routines or instant activities. Um this last year and this year, we're taking that team time to reflect and to become more engrossed into the profession, answer questions and bounce ideas off each other. That's another big thing because a lot of times people don't know they have great ideas until they're in. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced it too as a team leader. Like all of a sudden, it's just like, Well, well, I've been doing that for a while. That is, that's good to do. So, you know, when other people get to having that kind of experience is neat too. Or there'll be somebody who does something maybe a little bit different way because it works for their school setting and their population, and somebody else was like, Oh, I've never really thought about that. So the the brain trust, I think, is the biggest one of the really cool part when we get together and start talking, throwing ideas off of each other. Yeah. It's not just like really nitty-gritty right now. Why don't you walk me through a typical day at uh HPAI, right? Because we've got how long is it? I always forget because we have to get there early, but how many days is the entire event? So the pre-conference, um, which we have typically maybe 60 or so people attend. Um, although I have not checked so far this year if we're on target for that. The pre-conference is Sunday, usually that Sunday of the week. Um, not usually, it is that Sunday of the week. This it is the July 12th this year. Then the main conference starts. I think the first session is 10 or 11 a.m. on the Monday, which this year is July 13th, and then we go through late afternoon, early evening on that Wednesday. So about three days. Okay. And what can a first-time attendee expect from, let's say, as soon as they show up and get registered at 11 until the evening, what are we what kind of day are we looking at? A day where you will probably need a couple different pairs of shoes, um, a differ some different shirts because you're gonna be active. Um, you you'll also, this is this is this part's optional, but I do it needs to be said, there is the option that if you choose on campus housing, that you will live in a dorm for two nights. Um, and while that sounds horrible, it actually is amazing because not only at the end of each day within the institute do we have our team meetings, but then there's also social events and hanging out and debriefing about the day in the dorm rooms at night. So, you know, that's it. That is a good way to put it, right? Like we show up the check in, and then we're just there and we're doing health and pe for three straight days with three meals during the day. Three meals, all things and you mentioned like the dorm rooms, and JMU is a campus. So I I mean, we you and I went to JMU, so we already know how the uh I guess the environment, like the student population environment kind of what that vibe is, but can you try to put it into words? How does how does the JMU setting kind of set the experience? Like, what does that environment add to the conference? Uh well, so to be honest, the scenery is gorgeous. Um at the Festival Conference Center, you can go right out onto the lawn or the festival field we call it, and you see the Blue Ridge Mountains and lots of green. And I mean, it's just it's beautiful because festival's kind of up on a hill a little on East Campus. So the view is amazing. Um, and then talking about the the environment and the community, I don't know how it happens, but as an instructor, when you know, during the school year, during the fall and spring semester, there's just this feeling of family, friend, friendliness, kindness. Um, people will wait at you and hold wait for you to get to the door from the parking lot to hold the door open for you, that kind of thing. And even over the summer, while there are summer courses going on, there aren't as many students. However, we also share the space with summer camps. Um, we've shared it with volleyball camp before, band camp, uh, soccer camp, basketball camp. And even those middle and high school kids that come in for those camps have that same kind of. So I don't know. As soon as I guess as soon as you get into Harrisonburg and there's purple and gold everywhere, and I see what you did today wearing your purple and gold. Uh, yeah, yeah, purple and gold institute shirt, wrapping a little bit of team. What was this? Is this passion fruit, but that purple and gold? Yeah, so we get there, we've got all these lovely people helping us, everybody's smiling, there's high fives and handshakes, and then we have individual sessions where there's almost like a session buffet every hour. There's a 50-minute session, you can go to one of 10 different places to take part in lots of different information, right? Um, how do you as an um organizer go about selecting sessions and speakers? Or like are you looking for something specific when you're building the actual physical program and timeline? So a little logistics. Yeah. So I think where we start every year when we get into the the planning process of what presenters do we need, what kind of content do we need, we go back to the prior year's evaluations. And so at the end of the 2025 Institute, we're pulling out some common themes. Um there's, you know, people always kind of comment about the food, and that just we there's nothing to do about that. However, when we get some feedback saying, you know, this session, this presenter was very motivational, had so much information to give, then we know that that's somebody that, okay, let's let's give them the heads up this year that here is the the uh proposal window was open, which it is still open. If you are listening to this before June 1st, there's still time to put in a presentation proposal. Um so, like I said, we looked through those themes from the prior year. We also look at recent legislation pushes. So um bullying, um, hazing. So we there are also content area experts from across the state. Uh, we've had people um Virginia Department of Health come out. We've had lots of different nonprofit organizations, especially driver education. They have a whole slew of organizations that will do presentations that give instructional resources for driver education courses. Um, you know, for hazing, there, and I'm drawing a blank on the name of the organization now, but that they will come out, do a 50-minute session, and you know, here's how to teach hazing to 10th grade students. Um, and then there's usually some discussion within each session session as to okay, how do we modify it for ninth grade? And um, so yeah, we look at the themes from the um feedback, look at the the themes in the field, um, and and pretty much try to figure out what our teachers want and need. It sounds like we're just looking for things that people are going to need to teach in the next coming years, right? Oh, yes, yes. Try to make it as beneficial as possible for the attendees. Well, and these days in education, there's there are lots of career switchers. Um, so you and we found this over the last few years, the range of experience of teaching is it's oh my goodness, very it's huge compared to what it was 10, 15 years ago. So we also are balancing, okay. So here are some sessions that you would benefit from if you're in your first two or three years of teaching. Um, here are some sessions if all you teach is if you primarily teach health. Here are some sessions um, you know, that it's it's a presenter you've seen before, but content you've never seen. So try just keep a balance for the whoever might be in attendance, right? You mentioned a lot of different kinds of teachers. Do you think that there is a specific teacher that HPAI is designed for? Or like maybe in your opinion, what kind of educator gets the most out of it? So I know for me specifically, when I go, I know that I key in, since I'm an elementary PE, I key in on all the elementary PE stuff, right? And so for me, there's a lot of it, but I know that the whole program is not just that, right? So other educators might get something else out of it too. I don't know. Coming from like you teach university level now. There's is there stuff for university educators? Is there stuff for health educators? What would you say as to the type of educator? So I I'm gonna put a little personal touch on this. Okay, and I'm gonna teen girl. Um not just elementary, middle, and high school health and physical education teachers and high school driver education teachers, because you know we don't teach that in elementary school, um, but um instructional assistants would definitely are somebody that's there's so much that you could learn in a session. Um, if you have a student, a one-on-one student that you are working with throughout the day, um, even behavior management things. I have pitched so hard to my principal to pay the app, the registration fee for some of our instructional assistants, just so they can come and get just a little just a day, a little bit of what you know is some helpful tips and strategies that would help out in in our instructional setting. Because it's not like a classroom, no, but we are still trying to teach, right? So it you have to have different strategies, but that's a perfect, that is a perfect note there. Instructional assistants would benefit so much from this. So I'm married to a science teacher, a bow tie-wearing science teacher, and he even enjoys attending sessions because um, and if he were with me right now, he would agree. He says that the PE teachers, we know what we're doing. We have, I mean, we know instruction, we know behavior management, we know how to engage students. Um, so you know, he has even his students at JMU, he's even told them, I know you're gonna teach elementary school, uh, you know, third grade when you get at, when you finish at JMU, but you might want to check this conference out. So there really isn't one person that I or one type of teacher, one content area teacher that A wouldn't have fun, B wouldn't learn something, and C wouldn't come away with you know, lots of different a new pocket full of tricks per se. Yeah, I love that. Um, and I love this event so much. Uh, we have so many moments together from these events since we hang out like at every single one of them. Can you think of one thing from a past HPAI that really stuck with you? Or something that reminds you like, oh, this is this is why we put these on every this is why I go through so much work to put these on every single year. So two there are two. Um one instance was maybe four years ago. Um, I think it was probably my first institute with this hat with at the Virginia Department of Ed. So four or five years ago, um, we had a, I think she was an assistant deputy superintendent. I can't remember exactly what her title was. Um, but we had invited her to come and do some, you know, well, a welcome speech in the opening ceremony. Uh, and then, you know, I had invited her to team jalapeno, the first team meeting. And then she got to go to lunch with everybody, and she sat down with a different group of people at lunch, and then went to um sessions throughout the day. She came to find me that Monday night before she drove back to Richmond with tears in her eyes and said, I've never, the energy here is unmatched. Um, and she had been in education a good 20, 30 years. And I to me, that was just, you know what? She's not in our content area. She's a head honcho um at the state level, and she feels it. So that's the first one. Um, and then the other one is the camaraderie, and I feel right now, after 20 plus years of doing this, that I have a massive family base across the state of Virginia. The family base of health and PE teachers. Um, at any point, I can pick up my phone and text some one of the team leaders or text somebody who was on my team from a couple years ago and say, hey, thinking about this activity, what would it look like in a secondary setting? And just, and in that conversation, it then lends itself to, oh, well, how are your kids? And, you know, how is that adult soccer league you're playing in? So yeah, family and then the just the environment. Really just fills your bucket, fills your cup up every single summer, tops you off, overflowing, right? Oh, absolutely. Let's say, I mean, we've been there, we can experience it. We're starting to sound a little cultish, actually. I just want everybody. Yeah, okay. It is an amazing experience. You learn so much about it, but it's also just good time vibes, you know. So there is a there's a teacher or an administrator somewhere out there who's on the fence. They hear us talking, they want to go, but they're we we gotta give them that one little pushover. What is your elevator pitch to get them to take the jump, take the plunge, and come hang out with us for a couple of days, HPAI. Pretty much, I think the best elevator pitch is that there are PE teachers, halted PE teachers across the state that skip out on family vacations to come to the institute. And if that doesn't anniversaries, and oh my goodness, we've even had one go into labor during the in the first day of the institute. Yeah, there's gotta be something about it if it jumps a couple of priorities for three days, right? Oh, absolutely. Um, Elizabeth Geen and Amy Wheeler, I'm talking about you all. Or we are talking about you all, right? All right, so we still have uh a couple more months or weeks. I don't know where we're at. Eight weeks from M. Is there is there any information? Is there any information that you can give us about how to find it, how to register? Do you have that off the top of your head? If you go to Google and type in HPAI at James Madison University, the website will come up. Um what is really, really neat is that Dr. Susan Nye, who both you and I had as a professor when we were there, uh, she is still there. Dr. Susan Nye does a wonderful job of um communicating with JMU Creative Services to keep the webpage up to date. So you will actually, if you go to that webpage now, there's a uh link to submit a proposal. Uh if you're on the fence about doing a proposal, you should really, really do it because it is not near this is the prime place to get your feet wet in presenting. So that's one. Two, there we still have all of the presentation information, slideshows, activity decks from last year that is still available. And then there's also the registration link. That's kind of, I guess, the most important thing at this point. Um, registration for on-campus housing ends June 15th, which is two weeks earlier than it was last year. So that's a big, you know, that's a big shift, especially for procrastinators such as myself. So um make sure if you want to stay on campus and live in the dorm for sleep in the dorm for two nights with really loud, crinkly mattresses, make sure you register by June 15th. If not, you could still register. You would just you will be responsible for a hotel room of your choice in the Harrisonburg area. Yeah, and you know, Harrisonburg area is awesome anyway. So either way, it's a win-win. Oh, absolutely. Can't go wrong either. James Madison University, Health and Physical Activity Institute. Danny, I want to say thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Yeah, knowledge. This is a bright point in my week. See, getting to chat with you. So thank you. Also, I want to say thank you to the listener for spending a little bit of time with us today. Keep those heart rates as high as your spirits, and we'll catch you on the next lap of Fit Connection. I've been Stevie Ray Gray. You've been awesome. Take care, be well, and we'll see you next time. Fit Connection is produced by Blue Ridge PBS in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Education, hosted by Stevie Wright Gray, with assistance from V O E Health, Physical, Family Life, and Proper Education Coordinator. Blue Ridge PBS, production, podcast, podcast, all the time.