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Virginia physical education teacher keeps kids moving online

For the last two weeks, a Fairfax County elementary school physical education teacher has been holding daily online fitness events for students featuring stretches, short workouts and challenges. “It’s just so fun, and … sometimes I wear my crazy pants and people get so excited about it. I’ve gotten such a great reaction,” said Suzanne Metz, a teacher at North Springfield Elementary. She leads the Facebook Live fun at 9:45 a.m. weekdays. Sometimes she’s inside her house; sometimes, outside on her cul-de-sac. Her 17-year-old son, Ryan, does the filming while his 14-year-old brother, Cooper, joins his mom on-camera. Each event lasts about 15 minutes and starts with some stretches followed by a short workout. “We’ll do jumping jack ABCs, push-up ABCs, anything to ABCs,” Metz said. Each one also includes a physical challenge of some kind. “Parents love it. Kids type in how many pushups they did,” said Metz. To take part, you have to join the NSES Keeps In Touch Facebook page. Metz is the page’s administrator and will approve anyone who clicks to join. The videos are also posted later to YouTube.

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There will be four more Facebook Live events this week. But at this point, Metz is not sure whether she will hold any next week, during spring break.

Va. health dept. improves nursing home inspection backlog, reforms sanction criteria for facilities

Stories of neglect in care or unsanitary living situations have plagued several of Virginia’s nursing home facilities in recent years and data backs up a lapse in oversight by state agencies.  With reform efforts underway, the Virginia Department of Health officials said they aim to adopt sanction criteria by the end of the year to rein in bad actors and get troubled facilities back on track.  As of July, 58% of Virginia’s nursing homes were overdue for inspections and 68 of Virginia’s 289 nursing homes were found to have serious deficiencies, according to ProPublica. Several of the state’s flagged facilities with numerous deficiencies also had high staffing turnover rates.  The issue has been salient among various healthcare spaces, including VDH. 
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