President's Message

Amy Heuer

President’s Message

We at NDAHPERD would like to welcome you back to a new school year! As you receive this newsletter, great planning is going in to our Bi-Annual State Conference. This will give you some great tools to use throughout this school year and for many more to come. We need to thank MaryAnn Donnay for all of her time and energy in making this such an awesome conference. Please be sure to pass the information along to your classroom teachers, as Jean Blaydes Madigan will be presenting several sessions on Action Based Learning, which is based on classroom learning environments. Please be sure to check out the rest of the agenda in this newsletter.

On June 4 th I had the opportunity to attend the 2008 Pediatric Update sponsored by the University of Alabama. During this 4 hour session, information was given on Assessment of Overweight Children, Interventions, Sleep and Obesity, and Food Marketing to Children. There was a huge amount of information given. Please see additional information on these subjects in this newsletter.

I would like to give a reminder that we are looking for people that are interested in advancing our profession as teachers and advocates for children by submitting your name to hold a position on our Board. This is a two year position, and nominees will be voted on at our Conference in September.

This will be another interesting year, as it is again a legislative one. At this point we do not know what bills may be brought forth, or how they will impact our profession, but we will need to be ready to speak with our legislators and let them hear our voices.

As I get ready to pass the gavel to Terry Ferebee-Eckmann, I would like to say thank you to all of our board members for their hard work and support. I would like to thank the membership for your participation in our organization. We are here for you, to provide support in the form of continued education, networking, advocacy, and to help you keep in touch with all of the changes in our field. I know that as I step down, you will be in very competent hands. Thank you for allowing me to represent this important organization.