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Zuni Pueblo, NM
Nominated by Senator Jeff Bingaman (NM)
The Zuni Public School District recognizes the importance of providing children with access to healthful foods in schools and creating fun opportunities for children to engage in daily physical activity. ZPSD has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to creating a healthy school environment that protects and promotes children’s health, wellbeing and the ability to learn by supporting healthy eating and physical activity. ZPSD formed a Coordinated School Wellness Team (CSWT) that developed a comprehensive and targeted wellness plan in order to combat childhood obesity in Indian country and incorporated healthy eating and physical activity into children’s lives. The plan addresses the quality of foods and beverages sold in schools, the role of school food service staff, the dietary requirements of foods and beverages sold in schools as well as portion sizes, family involvement, and food marketing in schools.
Somerville, Massachusetts
Nominated by Representative Michael Capuano (MA)
For more than five years, the Somerville Public Schools, working in partnership with the elected School Committee, the PTA, Tufts University, Cambridge Health Alliance, the Somerville Health Department, and the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development have engaged in a variety of activities to ensure that the school environment would support healthy eating and physical activity throughout the day. With this as a backdrop, SPS has developed a wellness policy that will foster an environment in which students and staff can make healthful choices related to food and physical activity. In it, SPS defines various initiatives that are designed to encourage students to take advantage of more nutritious meal offerings and fitness opportunities. Lunch periods have been extended to allow for more time to eat and enjoy active recess. A walking program has been implemented as an option for physical activity and SPS is committed to collecting data on students’ health, in order to assess the effectiveness of the policy and to understand how poor physical health might influence students’ success in the classroom and in life.
To support better food choices, SPS has already mandated that fresh fruits be offered with every meal, and raw foods and whole grain products be prepared as meal options throughout the school week. System-wide, a la carte food options have been modified to meet national and state dietary guidelines. According to SPS data, almost 50% of K-8 students are overweight and 60% of the general student population is identified as low-income. As a provider of 1-2 meals each day for these children, SPS has recognized that school food service plays an important role in developing healthy eating and fitness habits, and ensuring that school meals are nutritious and well balanced is critical to the overall health of each student.
New York City, New York
Nominated by Senator Hillary Clinton (NY)
FoodChange was founded in 1980 in New York City to promote access to nutritious food and adequate income with a focus on the more than two million New Yorkers living in poverty. The organization has led the fight to improve access to and the quality of school meals in NYC. FoodChange has worked with individual schools to establish school-based wellness councils. FoodChange founded and managed four wellness councils in the 2005-2006 school year and will support the work of 39 other wellness councils in NYC’s elementary schools next year.
Food Change advised local wellness councils on how to write policies: banning non-nutritious foods for fundraising; not using or withholding physical education as a punishment; employing health tips in the schools’ morning announcements, and replacing ice cream with lower-fat options in the school cafeteria. FoodChange is working with the Office of School Food on a training curriculum for wellness council members which will help increase the sustainability of those groups.
Hartford, Connecticut
Nominated by Senator Christopher Dodd (CT)
End Hunger Connecticut is the leading Connecticut advocacy dedicated to eliminating hunger and providing food security for every citizen in Connecticut. EHC was the lead organization and national model in the successful campaign to ban soft drinks in schools. EHC was instrumental in the creation of strong statewide school nutritional policy. The coalition, with members of the Connecticut General Assembly and the Governor, was a key component of their successful strategy. EHC worked with education officials and other allied groups in developing a 260 page guide implementing improved school nutrition and physical activity policies. The guide includes School Breakfast and Summer Food programs in school wellness policies. The models on wellness policies developed and implemented in Connecticut with the help of EHC will greatly assist other states and advocacy organizations as they make progress on their wellness policies.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Nominated by Representative Mike Doyle (PA)
The Pittsburgh Board of Education adopted a district-wide wellness policy in August 2005 that carried the endorsement of various groups, including advocates and representatives of education, public and community health, minority health, and faith-based community improvement groups. This extensive collaboration was aided by local philanthropic efforts of Pittsburgh area foundations such as the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, the Grable Foundation, and the Buhl Foundation. With all of this support, PPS has been able to develop a nine-point district-wide policy that will not just lay idle, but can be a living, breathing guide to improve healthy outcomes for over 31,000 students and teachers.
The PPS wellness policy will implement a planned, sequential Pre-K through 12 health and physical education curriculum; eliminate all carbonated beverages, sugary and high fat foods from all vending machines in every school building; establishes an employee wellness program with education and exercise components; and further develops community partnerships with area providers to roll out health and wellness opportunities for students, staff and families. Partner providers include The University of Pittsburgh Center for Minority Health, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Grow Pittsburgh, an organic farming project. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has lauded the policy as uses it as a reference for other districts throughout the state. The School Nutrition Association has also cited PPS in their journal as an example of how to develop and implement a successful wellness policy.
Poplar Bluff, Missouri
Nominated by Representative Jo Ann Emerson (MO)
This rural school district in southeast Missouri has been a long time leader in the state’s educational community. The District played an active role in increasing the health and wellness of their elementary school students. The school formed a committee of community health leaders, including physicians, nutritionists, hospital representatives in addition to school personnel with the goal of evaluating student health with particular interest paid to obesity.
Working with the University of Missouri Extension Service, Poplar Bluff developed and implemented five week-long nutrition lessons for their students. Also, working with the local Park and Recreation Service, the school district initiated a walking program during recess. The school also instituted a Balanced Choice Program, which encourages healthy food consumption throughout the day, ensuring that meals offered meet USDA requirements every day, not just the average met over the course of a full week.
Monterey, California
Nominated by Representative Sam Farr (CA)
HELP is a community-based nonprofit organization that offers a wide range of public/private partnership intervention programs created to combat the rising obesity epidemic in the Monterey Bay Area. In 2005, HELP staff made presentations bfore regional school superintendents, and then to their various school district boards, school principles, and food service managers to ensure that all were fully aware of the requirements and timeline of the School Wellness Policy mandate. During the 2005-2006 school year, HELP held four wellness workshops to address topics pertinent to wellness policy development. They also developed a wellness toolkit that contains materials and wellness policy templates, and these were provided free of charge to participating school districts. Making this toolkit accessible online has enabled community members and organizations to adopt their own wellness policies and/or more fully participate in the multi-district process.
Currently, HELP is coordinating a variety of resources and partners to ensure support and technical assistance as school districts in Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties begin to implement their wellness policies. This assistance includes curriculum development, menu and recipe revision, modification of vending contracts, and encouraging direct partnerships with agricultural businesses to provide healthier food products for before and after-school activities. HELP is also partnering with physical activity and school gardens agencies to adopt three elementary schools for a pilot year comprehensive program, which will include nutrition, agriculture, school gardening and physical fitness activities.
Des Moines, Iowa
Nominated by Senator Tom Harkin (IA)
Senator Tom Harkin, one of the major architects of the School Wellness legislation, nominated the Des Moines School System for a VAH award because he was convinced that the school system was formulating a sound local wellness policy and also was creating nutrition standards for the sale of all foods at school. In the Des Moines School System, nutrition education will be included in health education each year for all students from kindergarten through high school graduation. In addition, nutrition education messages will not be just in the school cafeteria, but will be coordinated through the entire school environment. The school wellness policy also stresses the importance of a physically active lifestyle as part of classroom health education.
White County, Arkansas
Nominated by Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln (AR) and Representative Vic Snyder (AR)
A rural school district located in White County, Arkansas, Searcy School District has encourages students to inform and directly support wellness policy development. SSD has invited students to design their own menus that incorporate nutritious food options. This task is conducted as a contest, with the winning classes rewarded with a healthy snack, which reinforces the healthful eating habits that SSD would like to see students use. To encourage more children to take advantage of school meals and lower the stigma that may be attached to free or reduced price meals, SSD has changed its traditional cash handling operation to a computerized meal counting system. By implementing this change, participation of high school student participation in school meals programs has increased drastically, from 40% to over 60%.
A new curriculum addition to the health classes allows for two weeks of instruction about healthy eating habits, focusing on understanding food labels and appropriate portion sizes. Further development and implementation of the wellness policy has increased parent participation while actively incorporating student preferences. The collection of policies and initiatives undertaken by SSD has been used as a model for other districts throughout the area.
Seattle, Washington
Nominated by Representative Jim McDermott (WA)
Seattle Public Schools is the largest school district in the state of Washington. Taking early action on development and paying attention to make sure that new wellness policies reflect the diversity of the district, Seattle Public Schools has established a multi-faceted wellness policy that promotes the healthy eating habits and fitness of over 44,000 students. Their policies ban the sale of all foods containing high levels of fat and sugar; improve the quality, appeal and access to school meals programs; prohibits contracts with beverage vendors for “exclusive pouring rights” and provides all students with a high-quality physical education program that emphasizes the development of lifetime fitness skills.
SPS has formed a Nutrition Advisory Committee, which is charged with working alongside the Department of Nutrition Services to advise the implementation of the wellness policy while continuing to develop the new district-wide PE curriculum. Changes have been made to school meals menus to reflect the diversity of the student body. Ethnic foods have been introduced, marketed and served, and working with local vendors, SPS takes every opportunity to expose students to locally grown organic produce and unprocessed natural foods.
San Francisco, California
Nominated by Representative George Miller (CA)
Representative George Miller, along with House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. John Boehner, was a House champion on crafting legislation on school wellness as part of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 2004. California Food Policy Advocates is one of the leading statewide anti-hunger organizations in America. CFPA pioneered legislation in California expanding the use of fruits and vegetables in school meals programs. CFPA is a partner organization with educators in San Francisco and Los Angeles in their successful campaigns in eliminating unhealthy foods that “compete” with nutritious school lunches. CFPA works in Contra Costa County is also being recognized in this nomination. CFPA has worked with state and federal policymakers to highlight the need to expand the School Breakfast Program and the Food Stamp Program as a key strategy in fighting hunger and childhood obesity in Contra Costa County, California and throughout the U.S.
Arlington, Virginia
Nominated by Representative James Moran (VA)
The Arlington County Public School System (ACPS) formed a Comprehensive School Health Committee comprised of Arlington Public School staff, Arlington County Public Health staff, parents, citizens, Partnership for Children, Youth and Families, Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources. This group developed and helps implement activities aimed at improving the wellness of students and staff in ACPS.
Using Centers for Disease Control’s Comprehensive School Health model, ACPS developed a plan for focusing on a list of healthy food choices for children along with a physical activity campaign.
ACPS now requires all food and beverages sold or served at school to meet the nutrition recommendations of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. ACPS will continue to provide nutrition and physical education which fosters lifelong habits of healthy eating an physical activity and establish linkages between health education and school meal programs with related community service.
Washington, D.C.
Nominated by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
The public schools in our nation’s capital are gearing up to increase nutrition education, healthy food options, and fitness opportunities to benefit the 35,000 students it serves. With the assistance of local advocacy groups like D.C. Hunger Solutions, DCPS is prepared will roll out a comprehensive wellness policy for elementary and secondary school students that will increase access to healthier food options via federal breakfast and lunch programs; will prohibit the use of physical activity as a punishment; restricts competitive sales of foods with low nutritious value both during and after school; monitors and modifies fundraising products; and offers students a variety of school meal options that include ethnic foods, diverse preparation techniques and batch cooking improvements, and special menus that reflect student food preferences.
Working with community partners in education, health and obesity prevention, and physical activity, DCPS will also include a comprehensive fitness curriculum and parent information guide that will increase student opportunities for physical activities in and out of school. Parents, teachers, and school administrators will also collaborate to evaluate and monitor student success with wellness policy guidelines.
San Francisco, California
Nominated by Representative Nancy Pelosi (CA)
The San Francisco Unified School District was one of the first to require high nutritional content in foods that compete with school lunches. By increasing access to healthier foods in a la carte selections, SFUSD realized the shrinking of a deficit associated with competitive food sales from $1.2 million to $400,000. SFUSD took this action in response to soaring childhood obesity rates and related deadly disorders, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and Type II diabetes. The SFUSD wellness policy seeks to ensure that all food sold or served to students is high in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fiber and not just lower in calories.
A major goal of the district’s wellness policy is to increase participation in school breakfast, but such a goal can only be met if the students eat the meals. Starting with Balboa High School, SFUSD instituted a Grab n’ Go breakfast program that allows students to eat a pre-bagged lunch during the first 10 minutes of class time. The program encourages more students to start the day with a nutritious breakfast, and by removing the barrier created by having to show up 30 minutes before school just to eat, more students are participating and receiving a quality nutritious start. With Grab N’ Go, school breakfast participation at Balboa doubled. The establishment of more Grab N’ Go sites and the implementation of a new point of sale system to make meal payments faster and more discreet will further increase healthier meal options and school meal participation among the 56,000 students served by the district.
Valley City, North Dakota
Nominated by Representative Earl Pomeroy (ND)
Valley City Public Schools adopted a wellness policy in August 2004 and quickly established a nutrition team consisting of over 30 students, parents, teachers, administration representatives, and individuals from the community. From the outset, VCPS focused on developing a comprehensive wellness policy that incorporated that critical missing link for encouraging good nutrition and fitness outside of the school system, a community focus on wellness. Working with the University of North Dakota, VCPS offered free lipid profile and blood sugar tests to community members to help them begin to focus more on personal health. To further educate teachers and school system staff on the importance of wellness, graduate level classes in health, nutrition, and physical activity were offered at the university not only to increase personal knowledge and awareness, but to better equip personnel to convey these concepts to students via lesson plans and programming.
VCPS has implemented a “Breakfast in a Bag” program to promote junior and senior high school students to take advantage of a healthy meal to start their day. VCPS has also partnered with another local university on a video that encourages high school students to eat fruits and vegetables. Recognizing that partnerships are critical to success, VCPS is working with the Young People’s Healthy Heart Program at Mercy Hospital in Valley City, to purchase deli machines serving only healthy meal choices and to develop a healthy fundraising initiative for parents and boosters. VCPS is also working with the county health coalition to promote county-wide healthy eating and fitness programs.
Columbus, Ohio
Nominated by Representative Deborah Pryce (OH) and Representative Ted Strickland (OH)
Ohio Action for Healthy Kids is part of the national effort known as Action for Healthy Kids, a public-private partnership of more than 50 national education, health, fitness and nutrition organizations and government agencies. AFHK was formed in response to a call for action made by former United States Surgeon General David Satcher at the 2002 Healthy Schools Summit to reduce childhood obesity.
In Ohio, Ohio Action for Healthy Kids has adopted three wellness goals:
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Ensure that all school feeding programs meet federal nutrition standards and that all children have access to school breakfast;
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Only healthy snacks are sold in school vending machines; and,
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All children have access to intramural programs and physical activity clubs.
The lives of more than 18,000 kids have been impacted by the new wellness and USDA child nutrition programs that Ohio Action for Healthy Kids has worked to employ.
Bartow, Florida
Nominated by Representative Adam Putnam (FL) and Senator Bill Nelson (FL)
The Polk County School District has been successful in developing a comprehensive wellness policy for students that monitors food preparation, food choices, and physical activity. In order to meet USDA nutritional standards, PCSD has moved to eliminated all deep fat-fried foods from its menus in elementary and secondary schools and replace them with fresh fruits, vegetables, and self-service salad bars. In addition to regular school-day physical education classes, PCSD has also established Supervised Preferred Activity time that promotes physical activity outside of PE classes, and encourages students and teachers to take advantage of these opportunities to increase movement and fitness awareness.
To maintain support of the new wellness policies, the PCSD Food Service department has launched a website that addresses up-to-date nutrition topics and provides information and recipes to parents. Through these efforts to uphold nutritional integrity and team-oriented service, the Polk County School Food Service Department continues to achieve the highest level of nutritional standards.
Portland, Oregon
Nominated by Senator Gordon Smith (OR)
CHP identified youth obesity and its prevention as the organization’s first strategic focus. Working with county health departments, the Oregon PTA, medical professional groups and school personnel, CHP organized a series of school wellness workshops. Teams of public health professionals and nutritionists presented these workshops across Oregon to provide local communities with information, motivation, and support to enact strong, meaningful wellness policies.
These workshops empowered parents, health professionals, school personnel and community members to participate in the school wellness policy development process. Strategies were developed to increase physical activity among students, improve children’s food choices by improving food choices in vending machines, and incorporating nutrition education into the overall educational curriculum.
Glens Falls, New York
Nominated by Representative John Sweeney (NY)
The Glens Falls City School District started on a path toward increased wellness among their students in 1992 and those efforts have translated into a wellness policy that should more than meet the nutritional needs of the 2,600 students of this rural system. In 1992, GFCSD changed all of their recipes to meet the regulation using the national dietary guidelines by reducing fat and sodium in these recipes. As a part of the new wellness policy, these recipes have been further modified to included diverse meal options, raw food and salad bar service, and the development of on-site food preparation for such kid favorites as pizza, to ensure that healthier food products are used. GFCSD students will also enjoy extended lunch periods and recess before lunch.
The GFCSD wellness policy will also mandate nutrition guidelines for fundraisers, school parties, dances and other school related activities. Meals provided via federal food programs will also see an increase in meal options, such as a la carte specialty salads, which up to now were not available to students receiving free and reduced-price lunches.
Los Angeles, California
Nominated by Representative Diane E. Watson
The Healthy School Food Coalition (HSFC) is a community driven organization of parents, teachers, students, cafeteria workers and other advocates for children and food justice. Established in 2002, the HSFC is charged with assisting school communities to increase access to fresh and healthy good in both the school breakfast and school lunch programs of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In this partnership, the HFSC has been successful in organizing district-wide nutrition campaigns, including a ban on soda sales within schools and an Obesity Prevention Motion, which has restricted competitive junk food sales in schools. The Obesity Prevention Motion has also resulted in the expansion of the second chance breakfast program to all students, eliminated branded fast food from school cafeteria menus, and increased availability of fruits and vegetables in school cafeterias.
The HSFC focuses on increased student participation in the federal school lunch program as the most effective way to increase student access to fresh and healthy foods. To combat barriers to the program, the HSFC has organized student delegation visits to school board members to inform food service modifications. This resulted in the Cafeteria Improvement Motion, which impacts the accessibility, preparation, and marketing of school lunch. By tirelessly advocating for increased healthy food options and access to meals for the nation’s second largest school district, the HSFC has effected significant change in LAUSD’s approach to wellness policies that encourage access to healthy, nutritious, and well-informed food choices.
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Contact Information:
Ed Cooney or
Amera Bilal
Congressional Hunger Center
229 ½ Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Phone: (202) 547-7022
Fax: (202) 547-7575
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