Healthy Schools Campaign

HSC School Food Efforts Featured on "Chicago’s Very Own"

by Tara Kennon, HSC Writer & Publications Coordinator

Healthy Schools Campaign’s work with Noble Street Charter Schools to provide healthy, freshly prepared meals to students (and teachers!) is featured on an upcoming segment of “Chicago’s Very Own” on WGN (channel 9) at 9pm on Friday, Dec. 28.

HSC is partnering with the Noble Network of Charter Schools to work on transforming school food from an entity in which meals are composed of packaged and pre-made items into one in which meals are freshly prepared, include fresh fruits and vegetables, meet USDA nutrition guidelines and, importantly, appeal to students.

Jean Saunders, HSC’s director of school wellness, worked with leaders at Noble Street and other Chicago public charter schools – including Namaste Charter School and Perspectives Charter School – to help the schools develop efficient systems that allow them to provide freshly prepared healthy food for their students at a reasonable cost. HSC facilitated meetings where school leaders shared their varied experiences in both the logistics and the big picture of implementing a healthy school food program.

Noble Street came to the discussions with the goal of making a significant food transformation and, with the support of HSC and other school leaders in the group, has definitely achieved this goal.

Student participation in the lunch program has increased dramatically, with students voicing their approval of the tasty new food choices. Even teachers – who previously had almost zero participation in the lunch program – are regularly lining up to get their lunch in the cafeteria.

As charter schools, Noble Street and others in the group have flexibility in many areas of operation including the option of going outside the district’s established food service management contract for their school food programs.

“The leaders at Noble Street did this because it’s the right thing to do,” Saunders said. “It shows a lot of foresight and leadership to use the flexibility that charter schools have to make this type of significant change. With the new food program, they’re helping students live healthier lives – and in a very practical way, they’re also showing other schools that this type of fresh, healthy meal program can be a reality.”

Be sure to check out "Chicago's Very Own" on Dec. 28 to learn more!

Green Cleaning: Time to Make Your Voice Heard

by Claris Olson, HSC Environmental Health Specialist

It’s time to share your comments on green cleaning in schools!

We now have two opportunities to participate in the public process to shape guidelines that will affect how schools are cleaned in Illinois and across the country.  What we are talking about are the revision to the Green Seal Standard for Industrial and Institutional Cleaners (GS-37) and the Illinois Guidelines for Green Cleaning in Schools. 

Both sets of guidelines were developed through a public process with broad stakeholder involvement, and are now available for public comment before they are finalized.  When final, the ideas outlined in these documents will shape the way we clean schools and reduce children’s chemical exposures.

The goal of revising the Green Seal standard is to bring it up to date to more adequately represent current technology available in the market, and to ensure that the standard fully protects vulnerable populations such as children.  It is extremely helpful to read the Background Information on the Proposed Revised Standard [pdf] from Green Seal to understand the rationale behind the proposed revisions. According to the background document:

Awareness of children’s additional health risks from chemicals and pollutants has grown in recent years . . . . Exposure to chemicals in the environment, including chemicals from cleaning products, can affect children differently and more severely than adults, for a number of reasons. As they grow and develop, children pass through critical windows of development, which are periods of susceptibility to chemical exposures. “For children, the stage in their development when exposure occurs may be just as important as the magnitude of exposure.” (WHO) In some critical developmental stages, even a single exposure event could lead to irreversible, life-long impacts.

To view the revised standard and share your comments, click here. The comment deadline is January 16, 2008.

The Illinois Guidelines for Green Cleaning in Schools draft is a result of recent legislation making Illinois the second state in the nation to make school environments safer and healthier through green cleaning.  The Illinois Green Government Coordinating Council (IGCC) led the development of the guidelines through a collaborative process with a diverse group of stakeholders, including representatives from HSC.

Now, the IGCC is seeking input on the proposed standards. You can share a general comment in support of green cleaning or can download the full draft and comment on specific aspects of it. The comment period is from December 8, 2007 to January 8, 2008. Comments can be submitted in writing on the IGCC website or in person at any of the three scheduled public meetings.

Interested in learning more about green cleaning in schools? Order your free copy of The Quick & Easy Guide to Green Cleaning in Schools from HSC today!

Fresh Fruit, Nutrition Ed, Local Purchasing: Senate Farm Bill Includes Some Good News for School Food

by Rochelle Davis, HSC Founding Executive Director

After much debate, the Senate has voted on a farm bill that includes some good news for school food and nutrition education.

The bill expands the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to all 50 states and increases funding from $9 million to $225 million per year. This will expand the number of schools that are able to offer and promote free fresh fruits and vegetables and dried fruit throughout the school day.

As a pilot, this program has been successful in increasing student exposure to fresh produce and increasing student consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. It also introduces children to a variety of fruits and vegetables that they may otherwise not have the opportunity to try, an important part of establishing lifelong healthy eating habits.

This simple step is especially important in a climate where children have easy access to so much unhealthy food and often have limited access to good, fresh produce.

The farm bill also includes a clarification of language that now specifically allows schools to designate a geographic preference in purchasing food. This means that schools can now specifically request locally-grown ingredients in their food purchasing plans.

An important complement to providing fresh, healthy food is offering students the nutrition education that helps them make smart food choices. The farm bill includes funding to encourage the expansion of nutrition education by providing grants to projects that can be replicated in schools. 

The School Nutrition Amendment that I discussed in a previous blog did not come up for a vote, so it will not be part of this year’s farm bill. The activity surrounding the amendment built a strong coalition in support of school nutrition standards and the amendment’s main sponsor, Sen. Harkin, has announced his intention to bring up school nutrition legislation when the Senate re-convenes in January 2008.

Now, the Senate version and House version of the farm bill will go to a committee that will work out differences in the two bills. 

School Nutrition Amendment to Farm Bill Represents a Step in the Right Direction

by Rochelle Davis, HSC Founding Executive Director

The U.S. Senate is preparing to vote on the farm bill.  While the debate about farm subsidies dominates the headlines, it is important to realize that the provisions of the farm bill address many aspects of U.S. food policy, including school food.  (Federal school food programs are part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.) 

One of the amendments that senators will soon vote on would establish national standards for food available in schools.  There has been much public attention to the problem of childhood obesity, and the prevalence of junk food in schools has been well documented.   

The common-sense notion that it is important to offer students nutrition education reinforced by the availability of healthy food and the opportunity for physical activity is well supported by research. 

The School Nutrition Amendment to the farm bill, offered by Sens. Harkin and Murkowski, provides a national standard for food available in schools.  This standard, which is far better than the federal government’s outdated definition of foods with minimum nutritional value,  offers food manufacturers one standard to create products that are healthier for our children, rather than having to negotiate many state standards that have minor differences.

While this amendment has attracted the support of a diverse coalition of public health advocates and industry leaders, it has also generated controversy from critics who worry that it oversteps the appropriate role for the federal government and, on the other hand, those who worry that the standards it sets are not strict enough.

Healthy Schools Campaign supports the amendment because it represents a strong and much-needed step in the right direction.

Like all legislation, it required compromise and is not a perfect solution: but it is an important step forward and sends a clear message that school wellness and children’s health are significant issues worth addressing on a large scale. In fact, federal requirements already exist for school food but were written before vending machines and junk food had such a huge presence is schools. This amendment would bring a critical update to these important but obsolete standards.

The national standards would supersede standards set by states, but allow school districts to set their own standards that are stronger than the national ones. Close analysis of state standards and the proposed national standards shows strengths and weaknesses of each, but that the national standards would be at least as valuable overall as state standards. And, national standards offer the additional benefit of providing a set structure within which companies can develop affordable healthy products for schools.

Another Child Left Behind

by Claris Olson, HSC Environmental Health Specialist

Last week, I had a conversation with Francine, a nurse who was caring for one of my family members.  Francine is a hard working mother of two children at a public school on Chicago’s south side.  As usually happens with moms, our conversation quickly turned to our children and school.

Her 13-year old daughter, she told me, is a great student and loves school so much that she gets up to arrive early to school every day.  Her son, on the other hand, is more like my own twelve-year-old: his favorite subject through elementary school was recess and now that he is in middle school, it’s P.E..  (And yes, I am grateful that both of our sons still have these programs at their schools.)   

Francine told me that her daughter, besides doing well academically, loved playing volleyball and cheerleading. Now, her daughter doesn’t have the chance to do either of these things.

Because the test scores at her school were below a limit set by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, her daughter’s beloved volleyball, cheerleading, and other programs that were not core academic subjects had to be cut.

My heart ached for Francine, her children, and all the children at schools that are being forced to eliminate the programs that light the fire in our children’s hearts.

We know the research showing that physical activity supports academic achievement, and that healthy students are better learners. But I also know, with or without research to prove it, that P.E. is one of the main reasons my son likes going to school.

How can we expect children to learn and have a good attitude about school when we deprive them of the activities that bring them joy? Instead, children like those at Francine’s daughter’s school spend hours on critical subjects without a break for physical activity or the sports they love, which have been cut because the school has failed to meet a standard that to the children must seem arbitrary.

All children deserve the chance to be physically active, even if they happen to attend schools that – for a variety of reasons that almost always include limited resources – do not meet NCLB standards.

We know well the role that sports and exercise play in children’s health and well being -- for a few children, it provides their motivation for getting up in the morning.  Let’s not take that away.