The 2025 Monthly Virtual Learning Subscription includes 12 on-demand education Talks, one per month, and is free to Premier Members. These on-demand talks will be released on the first Monday of the month unless otherwise noted. The full 2025 Monthly Virtual Learning Subscription is worth a total of 1.2 CEU. NRPA's virtual education Talks feature knowledgeable subject matter experts presenting on timely insights from research and practice. Each Talk is worth 0.1 CEU.

Released December 2024! Enjoy this session from the NRPA 2024 Virtual Conference! As the adage goes, “Times have changed,” and so must our recruitment practices. The traditional approach of asking candidates to simply submit qualifications is no longer sufficient. To stay innovative and attract top-tier talent, parks and recreation professionals need to embrace unconventional hiring practices. We will delve into the transformative approach adopted by the City of Las Vegas. In a groundbreaking initiative, the city organized a unique hiring event designed to evaluate potential team members beyond their qualifications. The emphasis was on identifying individuals who not only possessed the necessary skills but also harmonized with the existing team’s culture. This carefully curated event featured a diverse panel of interviewers representing five agencies and varying roles. Learn firsthand how this innovative hiring strategy allowed the City of Las Vegas to attract quality team members for a pioneering project. Discover the keys to fostering a culture fit, creating a dynamic team synergy, and ensuring long-term success in the ever-evolving landscape of parks and recreation. Explore the future of recruitment with us as we redefine the hiring process, embracing strategies that align with the expectations and preferences of the new generation of professionals.

Coming March 2025! Enjoy this session from the NRPA 2024 Virtual Conference! Starting in 2022, Apex Park and Recreation District’s aquatics program went through several changes to help its sustainability, quality and inclusion for all guests. These changes included enacting an 80 percent group lesson and 167 percent private lesson cost-recovery pricing model that allowed for a $3+ increase in wages, requiring all instructors to be certified through the American Red Cross as water safety instructors, creating an aide position to assist with safety and active participation time, and mandating monthly trainings for staff to attend. In July 2022, we started offering adaptive swim lessons for people of all ages with special needs so they could attend lessons with a higher trained swim instructor. In 2023, we enacted more changes and additions that included certifying the adaptive instructors in Swim Angelfish, adding a full-time employee to manage private swim lessons, hosting a water safety instructor trainer academy and starting a non-competitive swim team. With the change to the cost-recovery model, we saw revenue increase 147 percent and 116 percent in back-to-back years. This allows us to help sustain our adaptive programs and our open swim hours through increased revenue.

Released November 2024! This session will review the importance of creating inclusive spaces for all individuals to experience belonging in the community through recreation & leisure activities. The presenter specifically will focus on ways to include individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in recreational programming and using specific supports and resources to bolster success.

Released December 2024! The CDC Branch Chief for the Drug Free Communities (DFC) program will present the rates of youth substance use in the United States and how the DFC program addresses youth substance use. She will then discuss ways park and recreation departments can collaborate with DFC coalitions, and how they can also directly apply for the funding themselves. A representative from the Douglas County, Kansas, DFC coalition and their local park and recreation department will then share a real example of how they successfully worked together on reducing youth marijuana use in their community.

Coming February 2025! In this learning product, we will cover the importance of parks and recreation in community well-being, exploring challenges and solutions to foster effective leadership within this sector. We will also delve into adaptability, proactive change leadership, mentorship, and succession planning, all essential for cultivating successful leadership paths in Parks and Recreation.

Released December 2024! Enjoy this session from the NRPA 2024 Virtual Conference! Across the United States, more than 100 million people — including 28 million children — do not have access to a high-quality park within a 10-minute walk of home. This might appear to be a problem for city park and recreation agencies to solve, but new research from Trust for Public Land (TPL) suggests local agencies are not the primary actors in acquiring or opening new local parks. Instead, city planning and economic development agencies — which oversee residential development policies — and real estate developers are the key driver of parkland acquisition and creation. A TPL review of park and greenway openings between 2018 and 2023 across 10 representative U.S. cities finds that across 76 openings in these cities, 67 percent were built on land acquired from real estate developers via municipal requirements for either land donations or fees to fund the acquisition of park space needed for residents of their new development. There are two primary ways cities are acquiring parkland as part of real estate development: parkland dedication ordinances and impact fees. This presentation will share an overview of these policy mechanisms and summarize how cities can structure these policies to ensure the park access gap doesn't widen.

Released January 2025! This presentation will cover the methods, challenges and successful outcomes of Lewisville's turf-to-native plant conversion project, providing practical insights into ecological restoration. This information is relevant to learners, as it offers actionable strategies for enhancing biodiversity and sustainability in urban landscapes, demonstrated through a proven, award-winning initiative.

Coming March 2025! How farmers markets around the United States and park and recreation agencies can work together to create a sustainable market. I plan to cover key aspects to consider when planning a farmers market.