Lessons learned from a community-university-school district partnership implementing environmental and policy physical activity interventions in rural Missouri

Background: Although there is growing evidence that physically active children perform better on tests and have improved classroom behavior, schools face challenges in providing the recommended amount of physical activity to students. Purpose: Healthier Missouri Communities, a community-academic partnership in rural southeast Missouri, is working with the Poplar Bluff School District to implement small scale environmental and policy interventions to promote physical activity within schools. Significance: This presentation identifies opportunities and barriers to make these changes and meet the needs of the district. Methodology: Surveys and interviews were conducted with teachers and administrators during the initial planning and implementation stages to understand the barriers and facilitators to making small scale environmental and policy changes. Findings: Data from the initial planning and implementation phases indicate 1) administration is supportive of adopting new environmental and policy changes, 2) after a small sample of teachers can show a new intervention is effective, overall teacher buy-in increases, and 3) when teachers are actively involved in creating evaluation tools they are more apt to utilize them. Conclusions: Lessons learned from our initial work indicate that schools are invested in making environmental and policy change to promote physical activity when these changes can be modified to meet their existing needs and they are effective in not only increasing physical activity but academic performance.