Skills Based Health Education

Health class can’t be a one-and-done unit that ends with a multiple-choice test. We sit down with Mary Connolly, program leader at Bay Path University and Cambridge College, to unpack what skills-based health education really looks like when it’s built on the Massachusetts Health and Physical Education Framework and aligned with social emotional learning (SEL). The goal is simple and ambitious: teach students the skills they’ll actually use to navigate pressure, uncertainty, and real-world health decisions.

We get concrete about the practices behind the approach, including decision making, self-management and goal setting, communication and relationship skills, analyzing influences, accessing valid and reliable information, and self-advocacy. Mary explains why these skills matter even more in a world shaped by AI, advertising, and nonstop misinformation. We also talk about using Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data to focus limited class time on what students are truly facing, from substance use trends to bullying patterns, mental health indicators like feeling sad or hopeless, and the growing concern of teen gambling.

We also dig into implementation: why licensed health educators matter, how districts can strengthen program leadership, and how teachers can plan better lessons using standards language, backward design, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and authentic assessment. If you’ve been wondering how to move from “covering content” to coaching skills students can demonstrate, this conversation will give you a clear path forward.

If this helps you rethink health education, subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review so more educators can find it.

Contact:

 maconnolly@baypath.edu 

connolly_mary@hotmail.com

Comprehensive Health in MA

MAHPERD Membership

Thanks for listening! 🙏🏼 If you picked up a new idea or felt inspired by today’s episode. Please take a moment to follow the show and share it with another educator who’s passionate and let’s keep the conversation going!” I’d love to hear from you and if your interested in being a potential guest on the show; email mahperdpodcast@gmail.com 

Transcript

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Welcome Mary's Background

Jake 0:17

Hello and welcome to Voices from the Field, a Mayford podcast where we talk with educators in the field to hear about their perspectives and experiences. My name is Jake Bursin, Advocacy Chair for MAHPERD, and today I have this pleasure of speaking with Mary . Connolly. Welcome to the show, .

Speaker 1 0:33

Thank you, Jake. I'm so pleased to be here.

Jake 0:36

It's fantastic to have you. So here's a bio about Mary. Connolly. So Mary Connolly is a program leader of the skills-based health social emotional program at Bay Path University, Cambridge College. At the university, Mary is responsible for delivering quality programs for students, seeking a Masters of Science degree, online health and physical education certificates, and a certificate for additional training in health education. She is also a health education consultant and helps many districts transform the curriculum from content-based to skills-based. Mary is also the author of five books, the latest being Skills-Based Health Education. A standards-based approach is published by Routledge and provides step-by-step guidance on how to design, implement, assess, and teach skills-based health education. The book should be ready for the market in the late fall. Mary, along with three other colleagues, are writing a book entitled Adapted Health Education. This book will provide the classroom teacher with the content and skills needed to teach all students, especially students with special needs and students with disabilities. Other books include teaching SEL in health education and co-authored infusing self-advocacy in physical education and health education, a special educ special book that includes chapters from professionals from across the country and Europe. Mary received the Mayford Joseph McKinney Award in 2020. It is the highest award given to a member of Mafred. And in 2021, Shape America inducted Mary into the Shape America Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award. Mary is also the Vice President of Higher Education for Mayford and works with the Executive Director, Maria Malchianda, to present unpacking the Massachusetts Health and Physical Education Framework, professional development to districts across the state. Mary also served on the committee that revised the national health education standards and a committee that revised the Massachusetts Health and Physical Education Curriculum Framework. Mary is a current member of the Boston Public Schools Subcommittee for Health Education, a member of the Massachusetts Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, the National Academy of Health and Physical Literacy, Shape America, ASCD, and finally Asha. Wow. Quite a background, Dr. Connolly. Let's get started. Okay, thank you, Jake. So for listeners who aren't familiar with the concept, what exactly is skills-based health education?

Speaker 1 3:10

That's a great question, Jake. Skills-based health education, in particular in Massachusetts, is based on the

What Skills-Based Health Education Is

Speaker 1 3:17

Massachusetts Health and Physical Education Framework and the SEL competencies. They're woven together in the one framework. The original skills-based national health education standards belong to Shape America, although SOFI, another national organization, also has a set of national health education standards. Instruction for skills-based health education is based on skill development ready, teaching content alone. For example, the framework from practices includes several practices. The first one is decision making and problem solving, then self-management and goal setting. Third one is social awareness, relationships and communication skills. The fourth practice is movement skills. That is the foundation of the PE framework. The next practice is self-awareness and analyzing influences. Next is information and resource seeking. And then finally, self-advocacy and health promotion. The content is included in each of the practices. There's a separate heading for content. So you may find in practice to self-management the topic of drug education. And then under that would be the practice, and those are called performance expectations. For more information about the comprehensive health program, can Jake, can you post the link for the comprehensive health program once we're through?

Jake 5:07

We can definitely do that. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes and as a resource as well. Great. So, Mary how does this approach help students make healthier decisions in real life?

Speaker 1 5:19

It helps a lot. If we have a pre-K-12, and I know that many districts don't

Skills That Carry Into Real Life

Speaker 1 5:26

have that, you young people learn to use the skills from a very early age, and that gives them the confidence they need to meet the challenges they have, both in their classroom, in their school, outside of school, in work, and so forth. So once again, the foundation is skill building, and that gives them confidence. And confidence leads to self-advocacy and self-efficacy, and all of that helps the young person make healthier decisions in their life.

Jake 5:57

Definitely.

Speaker 1 5:58

For example, students learn to analyze the influences in their life. If they're positive influences, we train the students to continue that, reinforce it, keep practicing that skill. If the influence is negative, we encourage students to identify the fact that it's negative and then challenge them. What are you going to do about it? So it's identifying the influences in their life and how to cope with them. Also, accessing valid and reliable information. Jake, for in these days with AI and the amount of disinformation that's out there, students really have to be smart about what they believe in what they read. And the skill of accessing valid and reliable information helps them sort through all of that so that they're not fooled by information that's only trying to sell them something or convince them that they need this product. Another example is learning to self-manage goals for themselves. Really important to have that setting of a goal, that skill. It helps them in so many areas. Also, learning how to effectively communicate. How important is that? Including how to refuse and also how to set boundaries. There's all sorts of benefits to being a good communicator. And then finally, learning how to advocate for themselves and for others. So there's lots of examples of how skill building helps youth develop the confidence they need to live a healthy life and be confident about the choices that they're making.

Jake 7:40

So well said. And I you mentioned earlier about the AI, which kind of leads me to my next question is what are the biggest health challenges students are facing today as compared to when you first started teaching? AI being one of them, but what else?

Speaker 1 7:52

Certainly AI was not around at that time. But when I first started teaching, I was trained to teach content. You know, there was no training in how to teach skill. And the biggest problem at the time was drug use and being able to manage stress. However, I do remember that even back then I was teaching decision making and stress management. So they have been around for a while. But the newer skills of accessing information, analyzing influences, advocacy, and more specific communication skills and so forth, that is new and it's better. And I remember when I was teaching, I went in to clean up my bookshelves and I threw everything away. Everything was old and I wanted to get rid of everything. And at the bottom of the pile, I found a book called The National Health Education Standards. Now I'm going back a while and I opened it up and I said, What is this? And I started reading about the skills and I said, I like this. I'm going to try it. And I tried it for the first time a few years before I retired, and it was like night and day. So emphasizing the skill brings the students into the instruction. It engages them. They have to practice, they have to show what they know. There's an authentic assessment. Show me what you can do. And that is so different from teaching content and giving a written test at the end. So skills-based health ed has evolved over the years, and I think it's so much better now than it was years ago.

Jake 9:39

And can you touch a little bit about the YRBS, the use of its behavior data, and how that kind of drives instruction? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 1 9:47

Yeah. And once again, years ago we didn't have that data, but

Using YRBS Data To Target Teaching

Speaker 1 9:52

now we have data from the CDC and we have Massachusetts data. And that helps to target the instruction and inform the instruction. Health education has such limited time. And that time, every single class is really, really important. So why spend time on things that are not an issue for kids? Why talk about things that are irrelevant? So having access to the data, actually knowing what the risk behaviors are of our students can help us target that instruction and use our time very effectively. For example, in Massachusetts from the 2023 Way RBS, and once again, that's on the Department of Ed website also. This is really important, Jake, because perception of drug usage increases from middle school to high school. So why is that important? If a student perceives that everyone is using, it's easier to use. Rather, to know the data. A very good example of how to do this is to give a blank YRBS to the students and have them fill in what they think is the data for drug usage or any of the questions. And inevitably, students report a higher percentage of usage. Their perception is that it's a higher percentage of usage. And then if you go back and give them the actual numbers, it's really impressive. That's a great lesson to do because that perception is really important. Another interesting point that we should be aware of is that high school consumption of alcohol in the past 30 days is at 22.4%. Now, once again, this is 2023. They only do these reports every couple of years. And using vapes went down to 18.3, and marijuana is close to it at 18.6%. So knowing that, you put more emphasis on alcohol, and you can treat vaping in marijuana at the same amount, give that the same amount of time because those numbers have gone down. We know from the report that bullying incurs more in middle school than high school. So you target that in middle school, and you don't have to in high school. Another disturbing statistic that will help generate instruction is that 26.6 of middle school students and 34% of high school students felt sad or hopeless over two weeks. That's a lot. So when you're planning, you put time into that. You put that in your curriculum, you address feeling sad and hopeless. You talk about it. What skills do you need if you find yourself in that position? And that's where skill development and acquisition is so important. And this one is really interesting too. And Maria Melchionda, our wonderful executive director, identified this risk factor and had somebody, and I can't remember, Jake, who it was, it might have been someone from the state, come in and talk about gambling, teen gambling. In high school, 34% of teens play the lottery or scratch tickets. And 46.3 of teens have engaged in any form of gambling in the past year. And now that the online gambling is so easy to do on your phone, it can lead to huge problems for kids and getting into trouble because they just get involved with it and find themselves in trouble. So knowing that data, if I were planning a program, middle school and high school program, I would use that data and say, okay, let's focus on this. Bullying, we need middle school, we don't need it in high school. Use that data to help guide your instruction and your curriculum development.

Jake 14:02

That sounds like such a great tool. So I'm glad they have that. Sounds like they need it more often. You mentioned it's every couple of years, but I think something maybe yearly or annually you come in as a beneficial. So, Mary what health skills do you think every student in Massachusetts, or in fact every student in general, should graduate with?

Speaker 1 14:20

Well, Jake, of course, I'm going to say they're all important, right? Every one of them are

Graduation Skills And Who Should Teach

Speaker 1 14:25

important. Every one of them has a role in helping a young person feel confident that they're in charge of their lives. A good comprehensive program, Jake, pre-K to 12, should graduate students proficient in each of the mass practices. We know that developing skills takes time. It takes practice. And the amount of time that is scheduled for health education, it varies across districts and therefore limits the skill development of youth. Health education is not consistent across the state. Some districts really put an effort into having a program leader, a department head, and give elementary time, middle school, and high school time, and other districts don't. So the curriculum in health education is inconsistent across the state. And I think I would love to see that improved. In a skills-based utopia, Jake, districts would commit to a pre-K-12 skills-based program taught by a licensed health educator. Maria Milki Honda, the executive director of MapErd, when we go around to the districts, we emphasize that so much. A licensed health educator. Very often, districts will take a physical educator and say, okay, you're teaching health. And that person may not be trained at all and doesn't know skills-based health or the content and is not licensed. So we really, in order to have a really good program that benefits kids, and I'm not saying they're not trying these physical educators, but they're not trained to do it. And you need training, just like if a health educator was told to teach PE, I think I'd quit. I know I couldn't do it. But how fair is that to ask somebody to go and teach something that they just don't know how to do? It works both ways. So definitely.

Jake 16:33

And I correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in in this our districts, we're allowed to teach up to 20% in another content area, which is, I think, the loophole that causes some of this to happen. And I know, at least from my experience, the PE teachers I've talked to, they want just to teach PE and the health educators want just to teach health education because that's what their background and certification is in. So that's what they should do.

Speaker 1 16:56

And it's what they love, it's what they were trained to do. But like yourself, Jake, having a dual license helps you to stay employed. So I mean, it's always good if you can get a dual license, but get the training for it. So, for example, a physical educator can add a license in health by just taking the test. That's not helping them learn how to teach skills-based health education. That's why, Jake, we have at Bay Path University two online certificates, one in physical education, one in health education, that gives the students four really good courses as a foundation for going into that discipline. I have health educators who want their dual license, but they don't know anything about PE. They take the PE certificate, and at least they have something going into the gymnasium that gives them a little bit of confidence that they know what to do. And the same for physical educators. You need to learn the job. It doesn't come naturally. It's a different way of teaching, even though the steps of the skill are the same. And I'll talk about that in a minute.

Jake 18:03

But um Yeah, we'll make sure to link that to the Bay Path of the resources you were talking about referring to. Thank you. Definitely. So, how can health education help students handle peer pressure and all the social and media influences that are happening?

Speaker 1 18:18

I go back, Jake, to the skills. All of the skills can be used for any topic. So

Peer Pressure, Social Media, And SEL

Speaker 1 18:24

if you take social media and you talk about analyzing influences, what are the positive and negative effects of social media? How can I self-manage if I know I'm uh I've got too much time? How can I set a goal to not be involved or to shut my social media off? How can I advocate for my peers not to be on their phones or social media so much? So any topic that you have or that we have or Massachusetts or anywhere has, any one of the skills can address it. And the strength of that, Jake, the beauty of it is that when you teach the same content through different skills, the students are learning more because depending on the skill, you have to tweak the content so that the content fits into what you're doing. So the student is actually getting more instruction, more content, but getting all of the skills they're better prepared for working through the social media issue that we have and how dangerous it can be to some folks.

Jake 19:33

Can you talk a little bit about the five steps to teaching a skill?

Speaker 1 19:38

Sure. This is where when I'm doing professional development, especially for physical educators who are being asked to teach health, I always start with this, Jake, because it brings both disciplines together because it's the same. You're teaching a skill, you're teaching a skill, whether you're teaching it in physical education or health education. Step number one, why is it important? Why do you need to know how to swing a bat? If it's not important to a kid, they're not going to be interested. Why is it important to analyze influences? If they don't think it's important, why bother? So step number one is tell the student why it's important to learn this skill in this content. Step number two is you explain the steps. Just as in physical education, if you're talking about battings, step up to the plate. Now I'm not good at this, Jake. You can correct me, but stand sideways as I recall and put the bad over here. So you explain the steps and usually you model them at the same time. In health education, it's the same thing. If you are talking about decision making, you're going to tell them why it's important. You're going to explain the steps and model them at the same time. Same thing as physical education. You would never show a video of a national team playing basketball and then say, okay, kids, get out there, here's the ball, go play. You would never do that. And yet in health education, sometimes you still see that, where you see a video on decision making and the teacher thinks that I covered that. Yep, they know how to do that. It doesn't work that way. Just as in physical education, you need the practice and coaching to make that skill perform correctly. And you need the same thing in health education. You need time for practice, you need time for coaching. And then when you're coaching, you give feedback, right? If you're holding the bat wrong, you would say to me, Mary, choke up. I don't remember what that means, but choke up on your bat. You'll do better. In health education, it's the same thing. Try this. I think you'll find this a little bit easier. So those five steps, Jake, I always start off when I have health and PE together, because I'll see the physical educators nod their head and I and I say to myself, okay, Mary, they understand. Let's keep going. And then of course it becomes more complicated. But the the foundation is there. Teaching a skill is teaching a skill.

Jake 22:10

Yeah, well, you did a great job providing the example of the baseball. Perfect. That was good. Thank you. So, Dr. Connie, let's talk a little bit about your book. Yeah, I know you have many, but what inspired you to write skills-based health education?

Speaker 1 22:24

Well, thank you for asking that question, Jake. It goes back a long time. I was

Planning Lessons With Verbs And Evidence

Speaker 1 22:29

presenting in Newport, Rhode Island, about skills-based health ed. And after my presentation, I went into where they have all of the different resources and books and all of that. And I went up to Jones and Bartlett table and I said, gee, do you have a book on skills-based health education? And she said, What's that? And I explained it to her. And she said, No, we don't have that. Would you like to write one? And I said, Yes, of course. Now, Jake, I never wrote anything in my life. I don't like writing. I find it very difficult to do. And I said, Of course, I would love to do that. I ran into the other room and I called my husband and I said, I don't believe this. I'm going to write a book. So that's how it started. But I've been associated with Shape America and Maper for a very long time. And I realized when I'm talking to teachers, they really not always understand how to teach skills-based health education. They may have been trained to teach content, or maybe they have, they're not trained at all. They needed something in writing, something tangible that they could turn a page to and say, okay, how do I do this job? And recently, I would say in the past few years, anyway, the teacher prep programs are now teaching their pre-service students how to teach skills-based approach. But I like my method. There are a few books out there, but I like my method. And I use backwards design, universal design for learning, writing prompts using the characteristics of effective health education, and designing authentic assessment. And that's a good way to train teachers. I've seen it work. I see the difference in my students when they go through my program. They know how to plan. And I think that's really important. Teachers need to know how to plan and know how to write a lesson plan. And I'm distraught that I hear so many teachers say, I don't have to do that, Mary. I don't have to write a lesson plan. I don't have to write a unit plan. And if that's okay with the district, I've got nothing to say about it. But I believe, old school, Mary, that a teacher should know how to plan and how to write a good lesson plan.

Jake 24:50

I agree 100%. So my next couple of questions are going to kind of fold into two. The first part is what's one key takeaway from the book that every health teacher should apply? And then if there's one strategy that the teacher or educator could take from the book, what would it be? What would you recommend?

Speaker 1 25:08

Well, I think the one key takeaway is to focus on skill development rather than content. And for some people that's really hard because like myself, years ago, I was taught if they know everything about drugs, they're never going to take it. Well, we know that's not true. So teaching content does not help youth, all youth develop healthy behaviors, but skills do. So the takeaway is certainly you need to have content, but you don't need a lot of content. Kids can get content online once they know how to access valid and reliable information. They don't need to have a tremendous amount of training and content. They need to know what they're talking about, but the emphasis should be on the skill. And the best way of doing that is taking a look at the mass framework, the practices, look under the performance expectations. Every single one of them begins with a verb. And that verb generates your assessment and your instruction. So, for example, if the verb is to analyze the pros and cons of vaping, I'll just say something simple like that. The verb is analyze. So that's what you're teaching, how to analyze the pros and cons. So, what do you do? You use a graphic organizer, you write down, the student writes down all the pros based on the content taught in class, all the cons based on the content taught in class, and then they present that. So they've done the analysis and then they present it back. But the verb of the performance expectation generates all of that. And that's the takeaway.

Jake 27:02

Okay. Utilize those verbs that are provided.

Speaker 1 27:05

Absolutely.

Jake 27:05

you spent decades in health education. What changes have you seen in how schools approach health?

Speaker 1 27:15

I I've seen lots of changes, Jake, and some I'm just so happy with. I've

The Future Of Health Ed And Next Steps

Speaker 1 27:20

worked with districts that have K-12 programs, and then I see districts that the teachers are just fighting to keep their own course. So depending on the philosophy and the understanding of the value of health education, both with the program leaders and school leaders, I see some schools prioritizing skills-based health ed and ensuring that as many students as possible receive comprehensive health programs. And that's a really good thing. However, I also see, and I'm not blaming anyone, we know that money is an issue and time is an issue. Some districts do not have health education district leaders at all. There's nobody in charge of the health program. Or they appoint leaders who don't know or understand anything about health education. I worked with one district who was in charge of five different programs. How do you do that?

Jake 28:17

Yeah, how do you think about it?

Speaker 1 28:18

How can you be an expert in five different programs? There are lots of reasons, and again, I'm not blaming anybody. Time is an issue, money is an issue. But when that happens, it limits the voice of the health staff. Who do I talk to? No one will listen to me. Their ability to advocate for their program. If you have your own district coordinator, you can say, hey Jake, I'm really worried about this. Can we do something about it? And you've got a voice, you've got a contact person. But if there is nobody there, you have to go to your principal, your vice principal, and how many things have they got on their plate? But not having someone who my preference is, of course, a licensed health educator, not having somebody who knows health education is a disadvantage. It's harder to get professional development, it's harder to find the funds to update curriculum. Ideally, Jake, for me, and this is really idealing, once again, in Mary's utopia, I would like to see a licensed, experienced health educator be the health coordinator. It makes a difference. When I was the coordinator in my district, I had meetings, I heard my teachers, I responded to them, I went and tried to accomplish what they asked me to accomplish. And after I left, someone else came in and didn't know anything about health ed. And they probably tried their best. But when you love what you do, you go after it, right? If it's just one of five more disciplines that you're in charge of, everything becomes much more difficult and complicated. So for me, ideally, a licensed, experienced health educator in charge of a program.

Jake 30:10

Well said. So what advice would you give to someone who wants to become a health educator today?

Speaker 1 30:16

Well, of course, I would love them to contact me at Bay Path University, M-A-Connelly, C-O-N-N-O-L-L-Y at BayPath.edu. We have a Master of Science in teaching health education, and we have a licensure track and a non-licensure track. So if a physical educator has an initial license, they take our master's program, they learn how to do the job, and then they add the health license. And so I would love to talk to anyone who's interested in becoming a licensed health educator. But we have licensure and non-licensure. Also, we have online certificate programs, one for health education, one for physical education. It helps teachers who are moving across the pay scale or applying for a professional license. So contact me if you think you're interested. Learning to be a skills-based health educator takes time. You have to learn how to do it. You have to practice it. Same as in physical education. It's no different. And so email me. We can have that as a resource, Jake, right, at the end of the program. Absolutely. And be great.

Jake 31:27

So, what keeps you passionate about this field?

Speaker 1 31:31

Well, you can tell from my voice, Jake, I am passionate about this. I'm passionate because I see how it works. I see students who pass through my program, my master's program, and how when they first come in, they're not sure of anything. Mary, I don't know what you're talking about, and I have to spend time with them. By the time they graduate, they are comfortable, they're confident, and they go out and do the job. When I go visit them for practicum, I see a very confident teacher who knows what to do from start to finish in the classroom. I see kids who are very comfortable practicing skills, very comfortable talking to each other to practice those skills. So, Jake, I've seen the benefit of it. I've seen students stand up for themselves. I've seen them advocate. I've seen when I was teaching, I had a peer leadership program. I taught them how to teach, and they went and they taught the elementary. I see how it works, and I believe it. And I think that young people need to have as many advantages as they can to cope with this world that we live in. There's so many challenges. And if they have the skills and the confidence, and they and they're confident and they know what to do to stay healthy, I think that's great. And a skills-based health education, pre-K-12, of course, and I know that, you know, it's seldom to be seen, is the best way to help our youth stay healthy.

Jake 33:04

It's got to be so rewarding to see your students go out into the field and really make a difference. And as you mentioned, seeing the students and how they respond to the instructions. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 33:13

Yeah, it is. It's great fun.

Jake 33:15

So, where do you think health education will look like, or what do you think it will look like 10 years from now?

Speaker 1 33:21

Well, I hope I don't have to wait 10 years, Jake. I'm not that patient of a person. I want everything right now. I know it's impossible. But I would hope what I really would like to see happen, and that would be a game changer for the discipline, is for the Massachusetts laws to change, to include, like physical education, and I know that's not always implemented in every district, but for health education, every child every year taught by a licensed health educator. So that would be what I would love to see. However, right now, you know, time and money dictates what teachers are retained, how much money is spent in each discipline. Right now, it I think it's a very difficult time for teachers in general, but especially for health educators and physical educators too, but more health educators. The law protects PE teachers because they do have that every child every year, Lauren. We do not have that. So I worry about that. But I encourage anybody, because this is very much a people business. You know this, you're a teacher. It's very much a people business. If you love working with youth, whether you're a teacher or not, because we train teachers. I have many change of career folks who come into my master's program from a variety of fields, from personal training, from business, from advertising, who don't know anything about teaching and they leave and they are good. So don't worry if you're not a teacher. If you love kids, you want to do what you can to help them be healthy, get in touch with me because I don't want to wait 10 years to see this profession be the best it can be. We have wonderful dedicated teachers. We have wonderful dedicated coordinators. We have that whole group at MAHPERD, and these folks are so dedicated to their program. We need to continue that. And I don't want to wait 10 years. I want the district coordinators to keep going and keep their positions and keep advocating for their health program. But we also need people to come into the discipline. If you think you're interested or you know someone that might be interested, have them contact me and I'll have you teaching well before 10 years. I'll get you right out there, a year and a half, two years at max. You'll be out there teaching.

Jake 35:54

You heard it, folks. Two years max, maybe a year and a half. So as we come to a conclusion, where can folks find you? In addition to the email, is email the best way?

Speaker 1 36:05

Yeah, it really is. I'm pretty good about checking email. It's M-A-Connelly, all together, M-A-C-O-N-N-O-L-L-Y at baypath.edu. Um, and also my heart mail. I always I'm very good at checking emails. Texting is good. Sometimes I don't hear a little ding, and people say, Mary, you don't pick up any text on it, and I don't hear anything. So the best way is email. I always do check that. And my heartmail is Connolly underscore Mary at heartmail.com. Either way, you'll get me.

Jake 36:41

Perfect. Thank you so much. , thank you for sharing your work and expertise with us. It's really been great and really expanded my brain, and I'm sure our listeners as well. So really appreciate your time.

Speaker 1 36:53

And thank you, Jake. It's been a pleasure. I am very dedicated to MAHPERD. Um, this is my state and my state organization. I've served on the board for a long time and I'm very dedicated and very loyal to Mapird. It's a great organization. If we have any listeners that are not members, let's talk about joining. Oh, Ian Jake, I forgot to mention this. If you can prove membership to Mayford, you get 10% off all of my courses. So that's a real good reason to join Mapird and contact me. So it's a great organization and I'm very happy to be a part of it.

Jake 37:33

That's a double win. We'll make sure to put that information in the show notes too. 10% off if you're a Mayford member.

Speaker 1 37:39

Exactly.

Jake 37:40

Perfect. So, listeners, we'll have this episode uploaded soon. Also, we're asking our listeners to rate and share the podcast if it has helped you in any way. Thank you all for listening. Have a great week, and we will be back soon.

Speaker 1 37:52

Thank you, Jake. Thank you, everyone, who's listening.