I am humbled and honored to be able to step into the role of President of Oregon SHAPE. Over the coming months, we need to continue to connect with each other. From the Coast to the Gorge, from Portland Metro down through the Willamette Valley, from Eastern Oregon all the way to Southern Oregon--we serve as a strong network for each other. I challenge you as a physical or health educator in our state to find the champions for our profession in your area. Connect with them and connect them with something you learned at our conference. Our network is only as strong as our membership is engaged. Be the change agent for your district! You are the key.

- Adam Howell

Thank you to those who were able to join us for an AMAZING conference! We hope you had a great time, learned a ton and made some new connections that you can carry with you for the year. We are excited to share that this has been the best-attended conference that we have had in many years! Thank you for helping us make this happen. We are so excited about the response that we are already planning for next years conference!

If you attended the conference, we would really love and appreciate any feedback you have for us. Please fill out this survey to let us know what you liked and what we can improve to continue to make the conference better and better. We would also like to know where you would like the conference next year and are hoping to gather your thoughts so we can start the planning process as soon as possible!

Once again, a huge shout out to our conference sponsors and vendors:
PEAK Coalition, Sportime SPARK, McGraw Hill, American Heart Association, Oregon Active Schools, Dove Confidence Me Project/Cairn Guidance, The Great Body Shop, Pumper Car, Fitness Finders, ETR, Gopher, and The Children's Health Market.

The Oregon SHAPE conference has just wrapped up in Bend, and I was inspired by the participants so I thought I would follow up with a newsletter piece. I was honored to provide three conference sessions – one session on “what is physical literacy and now it might be a stepping stone to active participation”, the second on using physical literacy to enhance performance of athletes, as well as enhancing “durability” of participants, and the third was a workshop on “what does a quality physical literacy experience look like in PE class?”. The links to the powerpoint presentations can be found here.

With any emerging concept, like physical literacy, the first step is awareness; the second step is “how to”. If you have become a champion of physical literacy, then I suggest a few introductory videos for your students (ages 6 to 12), as well as parents to increase their awareness.

The Ontario Physical and Health Education Association (OPHEA) has produced three “Hands Up” videos on physical literacy (introduction, exploration, and application) that are well worth a look & listen. The introduction video is embedded below.

The PEAK coalition is grateful to have been a part of this year’s conference. This is the start of an enduring partnership between our organizations and we look forward to collaborating on future projects. Presently we are building a middle school PE task force and we would like to involve SHAPE expertise. If you’re interested in participating, email Dr. Minot Cleveland at lcelvela@lhs.org.

November/December 2017 Regional Caravan ­

The Oregon Department of Education is partnering with 4 ESDs in the state to host the regional caravan for adopted health and physical education instructional materials. This opportunity is aimed at providing professional development and resources for K-12 classroom teachers and school district staff. Potential topics to be covered include the new health and physical education standards; Oregon sexual health/health laws; equity, and best practices. Publishers will give presentations and have samples of their adopted materials on site.

Please see the list of dates, times, and locations below:

• November 28: Multnomah ESD
• November 30: Willamette ESD
• December 4: Southern Oregon ESD
• December 8: High Desert ESD

Publishers Participating in the Caravan:

Children’s Health Market, ETR, Goodheart-Willcox, Human Kinetics, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Sportime feat. SPARK

Sample Agenda for Caravan

8:00AM-8:30AM – Registration/Network

8:30AM-12:00PM – ODE Professional Development

12:00PM-1:00PM – Lunch (on your own)

1:00PM-3:45PM – Publisher Presentations

3:45PM-4:00PM – ODE Wrap Up

For more information regarding the caravan, please contact Jeremy A. Wartz. Jeremy.wartz@state.or.us, or(503) 947-5736. For more information regarding professional development, laws, or health and/or physical education content, please contact Suzanne Hidde, Suzanne.hidde@state.or.us, or (503)947-5960.

NEW! Oregon Health and Physical Education Standards and Performance Indicators were adopted by the State Board of Education in 2016. Districts expected to implement in 2018.

• Health Education Standards
• Health Education Standards Table version
• NEW Oregon Physical Education Standards

Join us March 20-24, 2018 at the National SHAPE America Conference in Nashville! Registration will start in November so make sure to check out all the resources to help you get to Nashville! New ideas, new connections and plenty of inspiration are waiting for you at the SHAPE America National Convention & Expo. We hope to see you there!