Healthy Schools Campaign

Extending Sympathy, Sharing Grief and Looking Ahead

by Rochelle Davis, HSC President and CEO 

At its heart, Healthy Schools Campaign is about the ideal that all children should be able to grow up to live healthy lives, strengthened by lessons they’ve learned and experiences they’ve had in safe, healthy school environments. We have approached this work by focusing on good food, clean air, school nursing and opportunities for children to run and play during their school day. These issues are among many that shape children’s wellness in school and beyond. 

It is from this place that I am moved to take a moment to extend my deepest sympathy to those affected by the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook school. It is hard for us to be silent at such a sorrowful moment for our nation, and not to join the nation in expressing sorrow and grief at this unspeakable loss. Our deepest sympathy goes to the families, students and school staff at Sandy Hook school. 

Millions of voices across the nation are now speaking up to simply ask why and how such a tragedy could occur. Our nation is engaged in a dialogue about the complex issues involved in ensuring that our children are safe at school, in the park, and throughout their neighborhoods. 

At such a moment, I am moved to look to the heart of the work Healthy Schools Campaign does and reflect on the efforts of so many others to create safe spaces and care for children’s well-being. This work is vital, from on-the-ground work supporting teachers, parents and school nurses, to national advocacy on behalf of policy that supports safe and healthy environments with adequate access to mental health services at schools and throughout our society. 

In the months ahead, we will continue to join many others in looking deeply at these issues and doing all that we can do, large and small, nationally and in our own schools, to ensure that all children are able to grow up and live healthy lives.

New Policies Support Wellness in Chicago Public Schools

by Rochelle Davis, HSC President and CEO

This fall, we have seen remarkable milestones for school wellness in Chicago. At the Chicago Board of Education’s meeting in November, the Board passed a Healthy Snack and Beverage Policy. In October, the Board adopted a new school wellness policy. Combined, these two policies represent a significant advance in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) school food and fitness policy.

What do the policies mean for schools? Most fundamentally, they set common-sense standards to support children’s health and thereby set the stage for learning.

The wellness policy requires that schools provide quality P.E., offer more nutrition education, form a wellness team and designate someone to coordinate wellness efforts. In addition, the policy codifies and formalizes at the board level a number of important policies and practices that are already making a difference for kids’ health. For example, the wellness policy formally reinforces the district’s commitment to daily recess at all elementary schools and local procurement as part of the school food program. The policy also provides for strong enforcement in a number of important ways. For example, it includes an indicator on each school’s progress report that tells parents and the public how effectively a school is implementing the wellness policy.

The Healthy Snack and Beverage Policy establishes nutritional standards for food available to students outside the school lunch program, including a la carte items sold in the cafeteria, vending machines and school stores. The policy also requires local schools to plan for promoting healthy school fundraising and healthy classroom celebrations.

Simply put, these changes are very important: they mean healthier learning environments for the district’s 400,000+ students and also send a strong message about the value of wellness to learning.  

How did this come about? This advance builds on years of change at the school level and ongoing work to build support for wellness among parents, teachers, principals and school administrators.

At HSC, we have worked for years with incredible parent advocates, classroom teachers, principals and community members whose efforts to create healthy schools – one school at a time and through policy change at the district level – has truly built a foundation for these advances.

Through our Parents United for Healthy Schools coalition, for example, HSC has engaged hundreds of parents in Chicago’s low-income Latino and African-American communities in training and leadership opportunities focused on school wellness. Those parent advocates, in turn, reached thousands more parents through petitions in support of recess and breakfast in the classroom. Board of Education members supported these policies in the context of strong parent support for health and wellness in schools.

Through Go for the Gold, HSC has worked with CPS to support hundreds of schools in making changes related to healthy eating, physical activity and nutrition education as part of the HealthierUS School Challenge. (Currently, 71 schools have met the challenge, dozens have applications pending and hundreds more have begun the process.) Through this effort, principals have set health-promoting policies at the school level regarding vending, fundraising, healthy classroom celebrations and other issues that are now addressed by district-wide policy.  Just as Board of Education members were able to look to strong support from parents, they were also able to look to principals and teachers for examples of similar policies already succeeding at the school level across the city.

One note for those interested in the specifics of school health and wellness policies is that the Board looked at the issue of healthy classroom celebrations and the question of where decisions about celebrations should be made. At HSC, we believe it is important for schools to send consistent messages and support students’ wellness with healthy celebrations. (For example, celebrating a holiday with a dance party or special crafts instead of unhealthy treats.) We also understand that the issue of healthy celebrations tends to be the most controversial aspect of a school wellness policy, and that it is important to consider where this policy is made. In Chicago, the Board of Education took the approach of having this issue addressed at the school level, by each individual principal or school council. We were happy to see that the board included language HSC suggested to make the default choice a healthy one. With this approach, schools are encouraged to consider the needs of their own community and set a health-promoting school policy regarding celebrations and fundraisers. If the school does not act to set a policy on this, then a default rule will apply: classroom celebrations that include unhealthy food are limited to twice each year and schools may not sell food that does not meet the CPS nutritional guidelines. This is an example of our belief that school policy should make the healthy choice the easy choice.

When HSC began advocating for school wellness in CPS in 2006, the dialogue about healthy eating and physical activity in schools was at a totally different level, both locally and nationally. Here in Chicago, we worked with hundreds of parents to create a rally for healthy schools with the goal of encouraging the district to adopt its first wellness. In the years since then, we have worked with many more amazing parents, teachers, principals and community members who to support health-promoting changes at their neighborhood schools. Now, it is remarkable to see this type of change formalized at the board level so it can help shape healthier futures for the city’s students, now and for years to come.

In pausing to reflect on these advances, I’d like to commend the Board of Education members for their vision in recognizing that healthy students are better prepared to learn and that it is schools’ responsibility to provide environments that support health. I’d also like to commend the parents, teachers, principals and community  members who have worked tirelessly over the years to encourage change and model successful health-promoting policies at the school level, laying the groundwork for this powerful city-wide change.

Advocates, National Leaders Gather for Presentation of Recommendations to Secretary Sebelius and Secretary Duncan

L-R: Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services; Rochelle Davis, President and CEO of Healthy Schools Campaign; Gail Christopher, Vice President of Program Strategy for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education; Jeff Levi, Executive Director, Trust for America’s Health

Yesterday, HSC hosted a special event with Trust for America’s Health at the National Press Club to release our recommendations for improving education through wellness to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

We were thrilled that such a remarkable group of national leaders came together for an event focused on the idea that healthy students are better prepared to learn. In addition to HSC’s Rochelle Davis and Jeff Levi of Trust for America’s Health, speakers included:

• Gail Christopher, Vice President for Programs, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• Helayne Jones, President and CEO, Colorado Legacy Foundation
• Melinda Landau, Manager of Health and Family Support Programs, San Jose School District
• Allison Slade, Founder and Principal, Namaste Charter School
• Dennis Van Roekel, President, National Education Association
• Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
• Stephanie Whyte, Chief Health Officer, Chicago Public Schools

The Health in Mind recommendations reflect a new approach to making health and wellness part of the school experience. We invite you to check out the executive summary and recommendations online. In the days ahead, we will share case studies illustrating these ideas in action.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Many thanks to the remarkable advocates and leaders who made the Health in Mind launch a success!

Plus: Check out press coverage of Health in Mind! Reuters, Education Week, NEA Today and AFT News published coverage and analysis of the recommendations and event.

Physical activity break at the Health in Mind recommendations release event

Cooking up Change: The Winning Moment

Today we're thrilled to share the winning moment from Cooking up Change, when the student chefs of Chicago Vocational Career Academy (CVCA) learned that they won first place with their flavorful lunch of oven-fried chicken with sides of sweet potato salad and collard greens and cabbage.

The students will receive scholarships to Washburne Culinary Institute and will travel to Washington, DC to compete in the Cooking up Change national finals. They will also see their meal served in high schools across Chicago!

Please join us in celebrating with this remarkable team!

Plus: Read more about the student chefs here!

School Siting Guidelines Mark Significant Step in Protecting Children's Health

By Rochelle Davis, President and CEO

Earlier this month, the EPA released its voluntary School Siting Guidelines [pdf] which are intended to help communities make the best possible decisions when it comes to determining where a school should be built. I applaud the EPA for developing these guidelines and providing a tool that will help ensure the safety of children and staff. 

As a member of the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) School Siting Task Group, which was assembled by the EPA to provide input on the school siting guidelines, I was happy to see that the final guidelines address many of the concerns originally expressed by our task group and take into consideration the comments that were submitted from people around the country during the open comment period. 

The release of the new guidelines is the first time the federal government has taken steps toward preventing schools from being built on contaminated land.

The document provides detailed guidance on a number of topics including how to assess potential sites for schools and how to identify environmental issues that might pose a threat to student and staff health. We were especially excited to see that the guidelines also recognize the importance of engaging the entire school community in school siting decisions and call for “meaningful public participation” from school stakeholder groups such as parents, teachers, school personnel and nearby residents. 

The EPA has identified four underlying principles that serve as the foundation for these guidelines and demonstrate the EPA’s commitment to supporting educational outcomes and protecting the health of the entire school community. The four principles are: 

1. Safe and healthy school environments are integral components of the education process;
2. The environmental review process should be rigorous, thorough, well documented and include substantive and ongoing, meaningful public involvement;
3. Schools should be located in environments that contribute to the livability, sustainability and public health of neighborhoods and communities; and
4. The school siting process should consider the environmental health and safety of the entire community, including disadvantaged and underserved populations.

These guidelines provide a great foundation for helping communities make school siting decisions that protect the health of students, staff and the school community. I commend the EPA for their hard work and look forward to sharing this resource with HSC’s stakeholders.

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Plus! The National Trust for Historic Preservation also applauded the EPA's new guidelines. Check out their great guest post. 

Raise Your Voice to Support School Repair and Renovation in Jobs Plan

by Rochelle Davis, President and CEO

In his recent address to the nation, President Obama called for federal funding for school repair and renovation as part of his jobs-creation plan. School repair and modernization are critical to student health and achievement, so I was pleased to see the president highlight this enormous need as a priority.

For a glimpse of the needed repairs this funding could begin to address, I encourage you to check out Through Your Lens, the photo contest that HSC presents with Critical Exposure and the 21st Century School Fund.

The student and teacher photos say more than I ever could about the needs and potential of our nation’s school buildings.

Broken Wooden Door by Brittney from Washington, D.C.

The photos also highlight the significant disparity in our country’s school conditions. While the president mentioned technology and science lab upgrades in his address, he also mentioned emergency repairs and asbestos removal --  basic unmet needs that stand in sharp contrast to the healthy learning environments available in other schools.

Budget Cuts by Riva from San Diego

In Through Your Lens, we not only received photos of schools in need of repair but also many photos of schools that truly support learning. Some of these show new facilities with cutting-edge technology and energy-efficient design; others show schools that have made a strong investment in the arts or in providing spaces for physical activity.

Murch Elementary School's historic Cupola by Holden from Washington, D.C.

Many powerful photos, though, simply show old school buildings that have been kept in good repair. These historic spaces may not always have the newest possible technology, but they have been maintained well and provide good environments where students and teachers can come to school and focus on learning. 

The Library by Janelle from Las Vegas

Safe, well-maintained school buildings are fundamental to learning and health. We know students and teachers can’t do their best in school if they, like students who shared their photos in Through Your Lens, are shivering next to broken windows, straining to hear over ineffective ventilation systems or worrying about water dripping through a leaky ceiling.

They also can’t do their best when they need to leave the classroom because of asthma or other health problems exacerbated by unhealthy indoor air quality. Keeping school buildings in good repair is a simple and critical element of student health and learning.

I applaud the president’s proposal to address this serious need as part of his jobs-creation plan. The plan will now go before Congress, where the school-repair funding will need strong support. Please take a moment to contact your Senators and Representative to let them know you support federal funding for school repair in the jobs bill. Click here to send a letter.

 

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If you’re interested in learning more, I encourage you to check out Education Week’s excellent summary for more background on the proposal. This recent Washington Post editorial (published prior to the president’s address) also offers compelling background on the logic of including school repair in a jobs bill.

For more on this issue, check out the Through Your Lens section of our blog.

Health and Academic Achievement: An International Perspective

By Rochelle Davis, HSC President & CEO

In April, Healthy Schools Campaign hosted a forum on health disparities and their impact on the minority achievement gap. We heard from Dr. Charles Basch, who pointed out that health disparities and wellness have been largely overlooked in efforts to improve student success and learning. He focused on seven educationally relevant disparities: vision, asthma, teen pregnancy, aggression and violence, lack of physical activity, nutrition and breakfast and ADHD, and successfully makes the case for schools to adopt strategies to address this issue.  

I was interested to see that recently, the World Health Organization released a report on the same topic but from an international perspective.  

The researchers reviewed 53 studies which looked at the impact of student health on educational outcomes in high-income countries. Based on the evidenced reviewed, they found the following:

• Overall child health status positively affects educational performance and attainment. For example, one study found that very good or better health in childhood was linked to a third of a year more in school; another concluded that the probability of sickness significantly affected academic success: sickness before age 21 decreased education on average by 1.4 years.
• The evidence indicates that the negative effect on educational outcomes of poor nutrition or smoking is greater than that of alcohol consumption or drug use.
• Initial research has found a significant positive impact of physical exercise on academic performance.
• Obesity and overweight are associated negatively with educational outcomes.
• Sleeping disorders can hinder academic performance.
• Particularly under-researched, especially considering their growing significance, is the effect of anxiety and depression on educational outcomes.

Research continues to show what educators and parents around the world know: healthy students are better prepared to learn and achieve at school.

You can view the full report here.

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Bonus! Rochelle is featured as a children's health champion in Everyday Health's spotlight series! For more resources, visit their Everyday Health Kid's Health center.

Funding School Health Services as Students Move from Hospitals to Schools

by Rochlle Davis, HSC president & CEO

This week, I read with great interest the letter to the editor in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, submitted by HSC board member Dr. Martha Bergren. The letter was in response to a recent study published in Pediatrics which conducted an important analysis of the resources needed to support children who have been discharged from hospitals, but still need machines to help them breathe. The article found that the number of children requiring long-term assistance with breathing has significantly increased in the last decade and that increased resources are needed to provide care for this group of children.

In her letter to the editor, Dr. Bergren raised the important point that we must consider the impact that this group of children has on the U.S. public education system and the important role that schools can play in providing care to this vulnerable population. Dr. Bergren points out:

“With states drastically decreasing funds for Pre-K - 12 education, it is imperative that funding of school health services be re-examined. As the numbers of children with Complex Chronic Conditions and children who require health services in schools increase at an alarming rate, a sustainable funding solution must be created that ensures the skilled care in the school setting without absorbing greater and greater amounts of tax dollars intended for learning and instruction, the mission of K - 12 education. The cost shifting from the healthcare system to the educational system for children with chronic conditions upon hospital discharge has not been addressed in a meaningful way.”

We are glad that Dr. Bergren submitted this thoughtful letter to the editor and fully support the important role that school health services have in health prevention and promotion, especially for children who suffer from chronic illnesses.

This letter also comes at important time given the recent release of the National Prevention Strategy by the National Prevention Council, a group of 17 federal departments and agencies charged with planning and coordinating prevention efforts around the country. The goal of this strategy is to develop recommendations for “working together to improve the health and quality of life for individuals, families and communities by moving the nation from a focus on sickness and disease to one based on wellness and prevention.”

With the federal government’s new focus on prevention, we hope that the important issue of funding for school health will be recognized and addressed.

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You can find the original article in Pediatrics and read the Dr. Bergren’s full letter to the editor.

You can also read the National Prevention Council's National Prevention Stategy here.

Terry Mazany's Impact on Student Wellness as Chicago Public Schools Interim CEO

by Rochelle Davis, HSC President and CEO

When Chicago Community Trust President Terry Mazany was appointed as interim CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, I assumed his brief tenure would account for little more than a small asterisk in the annals of CPS history. Little did I realize that in five short months, one man could have such a profound impact on the direction of the third largest school district in the country. 

Mr. Mazany clearly has a deep understanding of the connection between learning and health, as demonstrated by his accomplishments in his short tenure. His accomplishments include:

• Creation of a new health goal for the school improvement plans (SIPAAA), fundamentally enhancing the definition of a successful school to include the ways that a school supports student health and wellness
• Implementation of a health-promoting breakfast in the classroom program for all elementary schools
• Establishment of a new recess policy which streamlined the process to allow schools to include recess in the school day

On June 7, 20 CPS schools were recognized for achieving the high standards for food, physical activity and nutrition education set by the HealthierUS School Challenge, with many more schools making changes to work toward these high standards. Mr. Mazany’s leadership, along with that of CPS Board President Mary Richardson Lowry and Director of Nutrition Support Services Louise Esaian, has been essential for supporting these schools’ journey to wellness. 

We know that Mr. Mazany will continue to show leadership in promoting health and wellness as president of the Chicago Community Trust and as chair of the Civic and Business advisory committee for Chicago’s Go for the Gold campaign. 

As we look forward to working with the new CPS administration, we want to pause and offer our sincere thanks for Mr. Mazany’s achievements and the significant steps he has taken to connect health with academic achievement for all Chicago school children.

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Plus! See video of Terry Mazany's address at the Citywide Forum on Health Disparties and Education here.

School Food FOCUS: “Turning Capitalism on Its Head” to Improve School Food

Today, we are featuring a guest post by Bettina Elias Siegel of The Lunch Tray, a post that originally appeared here on her blog.

Today, HSC's President and CEO Rochelle Davis is on her way to Denver for the School Food FOCUS conference, where she will have a chance to connect with leaders from large school districts working to serve the healthiest food possible to our nation's schoolchildren. We're excited to hear about the innovations and new solutions that emerge from the dialogue at this meeting.

We love hearing Bettina's updates and analysis at The Lunch Tray and thank her for sharing this especially timely post!

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For a long time I’ve wanted to write on TLT about School Food FOCUS (Food Options for Children in Urban Schools), a national collaborative that brings together the thirty largest school districts in the country to improve school food.  I’d first read about FOCUS in Janet Poppendieck’s Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, and later learned that my own Houston school district (the seventh largest in the country) is a member of the organization.

The idea behind FOCUS is simple:  large school districts procure so much food that they have considerable market power (second only to the U.S. military when it comes to food purchasing), which FOCUS helps them leverage to pressure manufacturers into producing better food.  FOCUS also creates a forum for large districts to meet and share their collective knowledge about improving school food, and it seeks to bring more regionally sourced food into the school food procurement system.

I recently had a chance to speak with Meredith Modzelewski, FOCUS’s Communications Associate, to learn more.

How FOCUS Came to Be

FOCUS’s Executive Director, Toni Liquori, first started working in the area of public school food procurement in the New York City public schools.  Interested in expanding her successes there on a national scale, in 2007, she held two successive meetings for colleagues in nutrition, sustainable agriculture, hunger, school food, and public health, as well as food service professionals from some of the largest school districts in the country.  Eventually the group received a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and FOCUS was born.

Says Modzelewski, “Until Toni arranged those first two meetings, people from these large school districts – ones with 40,000 or more students – had never been in the same room together, able to share problems and solutions, and share successes and failures.”

Making School Food Healthy, Local and Sustainable

When FOCUS works with a school district, it sets three main goals for school food:  making it more healthful in general, obtaining more of it from local farms, and making it sustainable.  To help it achieve these ends, each district is also paired with an official partner, whether it be a state governmental office, a city department or a nonprofit.

But what “local” or “sustainable” means to one school district might be very different in another.   “Because we work with so many districts, each with its own budget, regulations and needs,” says Modzelewski, “we allow the stakeholders – the school food professionals and their district partners – to make their own decisions about what their goals are.  There’s no such thing as one size fits all.”

Regional Food Hubs: Helping Local Farmers and Economies While Improving School Food

I was particularly interested in FOCUS’s emphasis on local food sourcing.  Modzelewski explained that FOCUS tries to integrate what are known as “regional food hubs” into the school food supply.

The idea behind regional food hubs is simple – farmers always face the challenge of getting their products from farm to market, and that’s all the more true for small, local producers who might not have sufficient trucks, refrigeration units or warehouse space, let alone the marketing savvy to get on the radar of potential customers.  Regional food hubs are now emerging across the country to address these problems, creating strategic partnerships with farmers, distributors, aggregators, buyers and others all along the supply chain.

According to FOCUS, school districts in Colorado and San Diego have already made significant progress toward developing their own regional food hubs.  These districts have found that not only can a regional food system be more efficient than a local or conventional one, but “when food grown regionally is eaten in season, it’s tastier when it reaches kids’ lunch trays – and there’s a better chance that kids will eat it.”

Case Studies: Chicken, Flavored Milk and Local Produce

Using market power to improve school food seems like a slam dunk, but the process isn’t always easy.  My own Food Services Director had told me that it had taken a relatively long time for FOCUS to make improvements in the poultry made available to schools, and that it was still hard to get products meeting the group’s poultry specifications.

I asked Modzelewski to tell me more: “We did have some good talks with different chicken suppliers a little over a year and a half ago.  At that point, it was pretty revolutionary that they were even sitting down to talk with us.  We told them what our specifications were, and at a last year’s annual FOCUS meeting we had our first school food showcase.  We invited vendors who were working toward, or had achieved, our specifications for chicken.  The problem was, most of the products, although great, cost a lot.  Many of our districts at that time couldn’t figure out how they could afford it.”

But progress has been made.  Modzelewski told me that in Chicago and St. Paul, districts are now able to source unprocessed chicken in the form of “naked legs” that can be cooked from scratch (and the same is true here in Houston).  “They’re lower in sodium and have no preservatives — none of the stuff you might find in a processed chicken finger or fajita strip.”  Those school districts have also come up with new protocols on food safety and food preparation for the raw chicken, protocols that can be used around the country.   “In one district,” Modzelewski told me, “they got a Flip camera and the staff made its own training video on how to handle raw protein.”

She added, “We’re pretty excited about those achievements.  We haven’t yet been able to come to a point where we can change the chicken supply for the whole country, but that’s the principle we’re trying to use.  There’s such immense buying power, that if we can get districts to agree on a set of specs to pressure producers, that should get us toward our goal.”

Another success story Modzelewski shared was how St. Paul, Minnesota was able to get local dairies to lower the sugar content in the flavored milk offered to students, a strategy I advocated in my recent post, “My Problem With Jamie Oliver’s War on Flavored Milk.”  Recognizing that St. Paul alone might not be big enough to demand change, the district sent a questionnaire to twenty or thirty other districts in Minnesota asking what each would like to see in terms of ideal sugar content.  It was then able to bundle this information and essentially guarantee suppliers that if they undertook the effort to lower sugar in the milk, there would be sufficient demand.

St Paul has also been able to change its school food bidding process to favor regionally and locally sourced produce, resulting in about 40% of its produce now coming from local farms, and it created educational materials for the lunch room to introduce kids to the local farmers growing their food.

Success stories like these often come from districts – specifically, St. Paul, Denver and Chicago – which have been selected by FOCUS as “Learning Labs.”  To become a Learning Lab, the applying district is asked to set out five to seven specific procurement goals, or to outline goals that it feels would be too hard to try to achieve without outside help.  If chosen by FOCUS as a Learning Lab, a district is then given substantial research and technical assistance, such as being paired with agricultural economists from a nearby university.  “That could mean doing a ton of research or talking to outside groups, like the USDA or the poultry industry, that a district wouldn’t have the time or manpower to do on its own,” explained Modzelewski.

I was so glad to be able to speak with Meredith Modzelewski and learn more about FOCUS.  It seems to me that the organization’s approach – using market power to bring about change – could well be more effective in the long run than any governmental regulation.   As Modzelewski said in our conversation, “We really feel very strongly about our niche and we’re going to keep forging ahead.  It’s a great mix of a nonprofit that’s working the free market, turning capitalism on its head so that it can work for good.  It’s pretty cool.”

[Ed. Note: Coincidentally, FOCUS is holding its annual meeting later this week in Denver, from June 2-4.  Entitled "Transforming School Food: A National Gathering of Peers and Partners Taking on School Food Change," the conference will draw over 160 school food service professionals and community organizations from over forty large school districts, as well as government agency partners and funders.  In addition to discussing regional food hubs, the group hopes to address how to implement salad bars and incorporate food from school gardens; teaming up with peers who have obtained improved chicken for school meals; the challenge and politics of school breakfast, and more.  Representatives from eighteen food companies will be in attendance, along with a delegation from the USDA.]

Chicago Implements Breakfast in the Classroom Program

With recent controversy around Chicago's new Breakfast in the Classroom policy, HSC's President and CEO, Rochelle Davis was invited to be part of a Chicago Tonight panel discussing the new program. 

What are your thoughts?

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Plus! Check out our recent post on school breakfast programs: Today’s Lesson: Addition, Subtraction, and… Cereal?

Update: Read today's editorials from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times about the program.

Student Reactions to New, Healthy Menus: Behind the Headlines

by Rochelle Davis, HSC President and CEO

The Chicago Tribune recently featured an article, “You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can't make them eat,” discussing the challenges that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) faces in student reactions to the new, healthier school lunch menus the district debuted this year. As the article notes, CPS has established new nutrition guidelines for school food that exceed existing national standards and include many similarities to the improved national standards recently proposed by the USDA for all schools.

Helping students adjust to the new menus is a real challenge; CPS and its partners must continue the effort to ensure that students adjust to the new, healthy options. The lessons CPS learns from this ongoing effort will have implications nationwide. In committing to provide students with healthier school food today, CPS is serving as a national leader, taking on challenges -- and pioneering solutions -- to prioritize student health. This leadership is commendable, and is especially critical in light of the childhood obesity epidemic and the significant health disparities that the district’s low-income and minority students face.

Research backs up what parents know about healthy eating: that kids don’t always immediately embrace healthy options. But we also know that a multi-faceted approach of presenting new foods and engaging students in lessons about healthy eating can make a tremendous difference for kids’ health in the long term. This means modeling healthy behaviors in the classroom, creating multiple opportunities for students to try new foods, adjusting recipes based on feedback and making nutrition education a normal part of the school experience.

At Healthy Schools Campaign, we are thrilled to see that CPS is taking steps to ensure that its new, healthy menus are ultimately successful. We see CPS adjusting menus based on student input, and making student-designed meals from the Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest a regular part of the menu. We see school nutrition staff attending training to develop culinary skills that weren’t necessary with more processed food. To address the need for kitchen equipment that supports the new menus, CPS received a one-time grant from the federal government.

This year, we partnered with CPS to launch Go for the Gold, a citywide effort to support schools in meeting high standards for nutrition education and physical activity as well as school food. This effort has brought chefs, parents, principals and many others together to begin creating a culture of wellness and healthy eating in schools. Go for the Gold offers opportunities for leaders across our communities to get involved: we encourage you to join the effort.

On a specific note, Eng points out the challenges of serving appealing meals while dramatically reducing sodium content. According to the Institute of Medicine, excessive sodium consumption leads to nearly 100,000 deaths every year. This is why the new proposed nutrition standards from the USDA call for a significant reduction in sodium levels in school lunches over the next 10 years. CPS has started reducing its use of sodium now, before the USDA requires it and before food manufacturers are formulating new products that would make this transition easier. We have seen CPS introduce a number of non-salt seasonings to provide flavor without compromising student health. Yet having students adjust to lunch items with less sodium remains a real challenge, one that will require creative, ongoing effort from CPS and its partners. The lessons that CPS learns from this transition will have valuable implications for schools across the U.S. as we all adjust to eating less salt.

Launching a healthy new school food program is an incredibly challenging yet incredibly important undertaking, one that will not be complete in a single school year. We applaud CPS for its national leadership in providing a school environment that prioritizes children’s health.

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Plus: Check out HSC's letter to the editor on the Chicago Tribune website.

Cooking up Change Video Spotlight: 'Bringing New Voices to the National Dialogue'

This year's Cooking up Change in Chicago was a huge success, but there's even more to come! In January, the winning meal will debut in Chicago Public Schools cafeterias around the city, and this spring it will be served in Washington, DC at a special USDA event and to lawmakers in Congress.

In this short video, HSC's founding executive director Rochelle Davis explains how Cooking up Change adds to the national conversation about healthy school food:

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Learn more about the results of our 2010 contest here!

Advocates, Students Challenge Top Chefs to School Food Cook-Off -- With a Little Less Lunch Money

Wednesday’s episode of Bravo’s "Top Chef" featured a challenge that high school students nationwide take on each year in the Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest, and which food service directors face daily in schools: to create a healthy, tasty lunch on a tight budget. But the budget that the students and the food service staff face is much tighter -- about a third of that given to Top Chef contestants. Can the lunches that Bravo's Top Chefs create stand up to those created by high school students with an even smaller food allowance?

"The idea was pretty cool, but I wonder what they would have done if they only had a dollar like we did," said Cari Smith, a junior studying culinary arts in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Cari and her classmates at Tilden  high school won the third annual Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest with a lunch that can be prepared for about a dollar.

Bravo's Top Chefs were given a budget of $2.60 per meal, close to the amount that schools receive to serve a lunch but nearly three times the amount that schools are actually able to spend on ingredients. After accounting for overhead, labor and the myriad expenses of running a food program, the amount that most food service directors have to work with is less than a dollar. (In large urban districts, it's generally closer to $0.70.)

"I'm thrilled to see chefs of this stature take on school food," said Rochelle Davis, founding executive director of the Healthy Schools Campaign, the not-for-profit organization that hosts Cooking up Change. "I'd love to see the contestants turn the competition up a notch and take on the challenge of creating these lunches with the same constraints that the students face in Cooking up Change -- really the challenges that school staff face every day in trying to serve nutritious, appealing meals to our nation's schoolchildren."

In Cooking up Change, teams from across the U.S. have met the budget challenge while creating meals that exceed high nutrition standards and only use ingredients available to food service. Winning meals from the contest have been served in schools across the country and in the U.S. House of Representatives cafeteria, which sold out of the meal Cari and her classmates designed. The meal has also been integrated into the lunch menu for Chicago Public Schools, where it is regularly prepared on a real school budget and wins a thumbs-up from other high school students.

How does this meal compare with the Top Chefs' champion meal? 

Cooking up Change winning meal: Chicken-vegetable jambalaya Cucumber salad Jalapeno cornbread

Top Chef winning meal: Pork tacos Black bean cake with crispy sweet potato Roasted corn salad Caramelized sweet potato sherbet.

"No matter how talented or determined you are, there's only so much you can do with a dollar," said Davis. "Schools need more money for better food. Seeing the students in Cooking up Change pull together lunch on such a shoestring really brings the issue home. Giving schools more than two dollars for ingredients like we saw on Top Chef would make an unbelievable difference in their ability to provide the kind of fresh, healthy food that supports kids' health and learning."

Davis has extended an invitation to the contestants of Top Chef to bring their culinary prowess to a cook-off with the aspiring chefs of Cooking up Change.

"It's a friendly challenge," she said. "But it's also a chance for the chefs to stand alongside our nation's students and say that one dollar is not enough."

If the chefs accept, Cari and her teammates may be willing to reveal some veteran tips.

"Plan out a budget and stick with your budget," she advised. "And pay attention to the nutrition guidelines. You have to be really creative."

White House Taskforce on Childhood Obesity Releases Report Highlighting Strategies Exemplified in Chicago

The White House Taskforce on Childhood Obesity, formed with the launch of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation, yesterday released its report to President Obama outlining strategies for addressing the epidemic. Many of the recommendations in the report -- particularly those focused on the school environment -- include strategies exemplified by food and fitness initiatives underway in Chicago.

"It's exciting to see these strategies highlighted at a national level after seeing the difference they're making on the ground in Chicago," said Rochelle Davis, HSC founding executive director. "We know these are effective approaches because we see them working in our schools and communities." In April, Davis participated in a White House summit convened by the Taskforce on Childhood Obesity to provide input for the report and subsequent course of action.

HSC's efforts to transform the school food and fitness environment in Chicago and beyond align with the recommendations at multiple levels, including:

Engaging students and community in Cooking up Change for school food. On May 17, high school and college students from across the U.S. will battle for first place in the final round of the Cooking up Change national healthy cooking contest, a culinary competition in which students design healthy school meals incorporating local ingredients on a tight budget with many of the constraints that food service providers typically face, including the Institute of Medicine standards recommended in the report. HSC launched the contest in Chicago in 2007 to engage student chefs and the broader community in a dialogue about healthful school food and the need for more resources for our nation’s school meal program. Since then, meals designed by students have been served to more than 40,000 students nationwide, in the House of Representatives cafeteria and at a Capitol Hill briefing on school food reform. Next week's contest will take place at Taking Root, the National Farm to Cafeteria conference in Detroit, the first time the conference has gone national. The contest's national reach will be highlighted in the film documentary "Lunch Line," which will debut May 18 at the Taking Root conference. The film focuses on student winners from Cooking up Change as they take their school meal to Congress to speak up for healthier school food.

Empowering parents. On May 19, more than a hundred parents from Chicago's Latino and African-American communities will come together for HSC's annual Parents United for Healthy Schools summit at to celebrate progress parents have made in advocating for wellness in Chicago schools. After completing an HSC training on healthy food, physical activity and strategies for change, parents have formed more than 40 wellness teams at schools across the city to help implement the district wellness policy at a school level. Parent leaders were instrumental in advocating for the return of recess in Chicago Public Schools, an initiative that school district leadership now encourages.

Taking on the HealthierUS School Challenge. A key component of Michelle Obama's initiative and the taskforce report is the HealthierUS School Challenge, a USDA program that recognizes school achievement in providing healthy food, physical education, physical activity and nutrition education. Chicago Public Schools recently became the first major school district in the nation to adopt the HealthierUS Gold Standard for all school meals beginning in the 2010-2011 school year. HSC is partnering with Chicago Public Schools and the USDA Midwest to support schools in meeting equally high standards for physical activity and nutrition education.

Connecting schools with local farms. With one of the largest farm to cafeteria programs in the nation, Chicago is pioneering new strategies for bringing the freshest, best-tasting produce to schoolchildren while supporting the regional economy. The district currently serves local flash-frozen produce several times per week and fresh local produce in season; this program is continuing to expand. Students also incorporate local ingredients in their entries in the Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest.

As these innovative initiatives develop at the local level in Chicago, HSC leaders and advocates across the U.S. are speaking up for changes to federal policy as Congress takes up the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which determines school food policy and resources. Advocates point out that schools need increased funding to provide the health-promoting meals that the taskforce recommends. The taskforce’s report recommends increased resources for school meals; HSC has mobilized stakeholders to advocate reauthorization funded at President Obama’s proposed level of $10 billion over the next ten years.

"We're seeing parents, students and food service directors in Chicago and across the country stepping up to do their part for kids' health," Davis said. "Now we need Congress to do their part and provide adequate funding for healthy school meals."

To learn more or raise your voice for healthy school food, please visit www.healthyschoolscampaign.org.

Q&A with Dr. Dora Hughes, Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services

Founding Director Rochelle Davis with Dr. Dora Hughes, Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, at the White House summit on childhood obesity

Earlier this month, HSC Founding Executive Director Rochelle Davis participated in a a White House meeting hosted by the Interagency Taskforce to Prevent Childhood Obesity. Also in attendance was Dr. Dora Hughes, Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, whom HSC has been honored to work with in the past. (In 2008, Hughes toured a healthy, high-performing school with HSC.) 

In May 2009, we had the opportunity to interview Hughes about her role, her vision for schools and the importance of promoting a healthy, active lifestyle. Much has happened since then -- including the launch of Let's Move and the formation of the Interagency Taskforce to Prevent Childhood Obesity -- but her thoughtful remarks continue to provide relevant insight into the important role schools can play in our nation's wellness efforts. Below is our Q&A with Dr. Dora Hughes from May 2009.

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What role can schools play in the prevention aspect of health care?

Starting at the top with President Obama, there is tremendous support for expanding and promoting prevention, particularly in community settings, which we define as prevention activities that occur outside traditional healthcare locations. Community settings include schools, work sites, homes, and other locations. We have a number of quite promising program models for providing effective preventive care in the community. The goal now is to expand and accelerate implementation and evaluation of these models on a larger scale, and to engage all of the agencies throughout Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and beyond. 

What is your vision for schools?

We all understand that schools must be a priority, in part because of the number of hours that children spend in schools for academic work and for extracurricular activities. We see a number of leverage points that can be used to improve student health: increasing physical activity, including recess but also physical education and other types of activity, and improving diets through school breakfast and lunch programs. These leverage points also include a number of enhancements such as green changes that can create healthier environments, which are both the right thing to do for children’s health and also the smart thing to do for the environment. 

There is a lot of thinking going on right now, within HHS and across departments such as the U.S Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education. With regard to the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization, for example, there is a lot of thinking about what role healthy school food initiatives can play in promoting prevention and enhancing school performance. We’re seeing a commitment to the issue across departments and leadership from the White House. The full support of the President, energy and excitement across departments and broad awareness and support from public stakeholder groups creates an environment where we as a nation will be able to move forward with expanding access to promising programs for children’s health promotion. 

I do believe there is a growing awareness in the general public about the need for prevention and an understanding of how to implement prevention in schools, including through physical activity, healthy foods, and green environments. It’s starting to galvanize the attention and awareness of the general public. It is bringing different stakeholders to the table – elected officials as well as public health officials, private sector leaders, parents, providers and of course teachers and school administrators. This collaboration is helping amplify the message and will help to make prevention initiatives more successful than if they were championed by only one group. 

Several major reports have come out in the past three to five years, so there’s increased knowledge about what works and what evidence gaps still exist. We’ve seen large and small foundations putting resources towards this work, which is helping to leverage federal investment of attention and resources in this area. 

We’re reaching a pivotal point in time where we’re able to point to the evidence base and at the same time engage willing and active partners. 

From the perspective of preventive care, what characteristics do you see in an ideal school?

That’s a difficult question, because there are so many factors that contribute to a healthy environment. I’d say that in addition to the food, physical activity and the green aspects of a school, you can’t overstate the importance of the human resources. Leadership from principals, commitment by teachers, efforts by the food service professionals to serve healthier choices are all critical. Healthy schools empower students, inspiring them to be leaders in their own right. Healthy schools address not only children’s physical health, not just their clinical health, but also their social functioning and development. We have to work to improve the human environment as well as the physical environment to create a healthy school environment. It’s not just a matter of financing, although that is important, but also a matter of leadership. 

Parental involvement is particularly critical. With all of the challenges on a school’s plate, an active parent base can be very motivating and inspiring – when you see parents care about these issues, it elevates the importance of the issues and helps increase the odds of success for wellness activities.

In November 2008, you joined Healthy Schools Campaign on a tour of some Chicago schools that have made wellness and environmental health a priority. What stood out to you on that tour? 

What really stood out was the commitment from teachers and the administrative staff to making health and green practices a top priority. We saw people definitely thinking outside the box in terms of integrating physical activity into the school day, improving the nutrition of school meals, and making green practices of the school into learning opportunities for children. This points to making sure that at the federal level, we encourage innovation and invention, making sure that ideas that begin at the local school level can bubble up to become part of solutions at the federal policy level. 

 What role do school nurses play in preventative health care in schools? 

School nurses have played a critical role in expanding access to care. They’re also able to elevate the message of prevention and wellness, which is invaluable. I don’t think the importance of school nurses could be overstated.

HSC Participates in White House Task Force Meeting to Address Childhood Obesity

By Rochelle Davis, Founding Executive Director

On April 9, I had the honor of participating in a White House meeting hosted by the Interagency Taskforce to Prevent Childhood Obesity. Nearly 200 people were invited, including advocates and federal leaders we've had the opportunity to work with over the years.

It was such an honor to be included in this group. I was thrilled to hear Michelle Obama speak about the policy and research behind ending childhood obesity; after following her initiative so closely, it was a privilege to hear first-hand about the important work the group is doing.

The summit felt very much like a working session, and it was valuable to hear the national leaders who are shaping policy around school and community-based solutions discuss many of the issues that we work on here at HSC. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said he is a "big fan" of recess, and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan talked about the paradoxical connection between obesity and hunger.

It was also very interesting to hear from the experts who are putting the obesity epidemic into numbers with analysis of the costs and risks it poses. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin talked about the medical risks of obesity, which are in some ways higher than the staggeringly high risks of smoking; Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, discussed the financial impact of obesity on health care at a level of detail and clarity I had not heard before.

Later, I participated in a small group session on school food and fitness that included advocates and school food service directors as well as government officials. I was glad to see such a diverse group at the table and appreciated the opportunity to add my two cents to the discussion.

The Interagency Taskforce to Prevent Childhood Obesity was created in February by an Executive Order from President Obama. The task force was charged with creating a plan within 90 days that will serve as a blueprint for the government’s obesity prevention program. The group received more than 2,500 suggestions, and this meeting was an opportunity for the task force members to have a dialogue with additional people working in the field on these issues.

I was struck throughout the day by how much the task force is reaching out to "experts on the ground" -- advocates, food service directors, teachers, parents, community leaders -- in developing recommendations that will make a real difference for children's health. We all have a role in this effort. As the First Lady said in her remarks:

"...To achieve this goal, we are going to need all of you. We’re going to need all of you -- your insight, your experience, your guidance. And that’s why we are so excited about this gathering here today, because you all know this issue better than just about anyone. So many of you have dedicated your lives to fighting this battle, and many of you are just thankful that there’s someone else shining the spotlight on what you have known for a long, long time."

We at HSC are proud to be part of this nationwide effort.

Momentum for Change: Healthy Schools Campaign’s Work in the Context of Michelle Obama’s Initiative to End Childhood Obesity

By Rochelle Davis, Founding Executive Director

This Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama launched her comprehensive initiative to reverse the trend of childhood obesity within a generation.  I want to provide you with an overview of her initiative and how Healthy Schools Campaign's work is positioned in relation to this effort.

The First Lady’s program, which is called Let’s Move, focuses on what families, communities and the public and private sectors can do to improve health, specifically children’s health.  The major components of this initiative are:

Encourage Americans to make healthy choices by making nutrition information on food packages more clear, and empowering parents with simple and easy-to-use tips on how to promote healthy eating and physical activity.

Improve nutrition and physical education in schools by encouraging schools to participate in the HealthierUS Schools Challenge, and pass a strong Child Nutrition Act reauthorization this year.

Increase physical activity by promoting the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award.  

Make healthy food more available, particularly in low-income communities through the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a $400 million per year effort to eliminate food deserts in the next five years.

The First Lady’s emergence as a champion on this issue, and her focus on school food, creates significant momentum for achieving meaningful and sustainable change. Her program reinforces what we have learned in our own work. We need environmental changes in order to effectively combat childhood obesity and no one sector, whether it be government, business, schools or parents, can solve this problem by itself.

Let’s Move has a major focus on the school environment; specifically,  the program focuses on two areas:  the HealthierUS Schools Challenge, and the Child Nutrition Act. The HealthierUS Schools Challenge is a recognition program for schools that meet high nutrition standards and incorporate physical activity and nutrition education into the school day.  We are currently working with the Chicago Public Schools to adopt this program. 

The First Lady called on Congress to pass a Child Nutrition Act which improves nutritional standards for all school food, increases funding by $1 billion per year for the next ten years, and makes it easier for students to participate. HSC has been very active in promoting a Child Nutrition Act that provides additional resources for more healthful school food. 

In fact, we are now partnering with Karen Duncan, wife of the Secretary of Education, and Christie Vilsack, wife of the Secretary of Agriculture.  As the National Honorary Co-chairs for Cooking up Change 2010, they are supporting our efforts to promote a strong Child Nutrition Act. On March 2, we will travel to Washington, DC with students from Tilden Career Community Academy High School, the 2009 winning team at Cooking up Change, to participate in a congressional briefing with Mrs. Duncan and Mrs. Vilsack.  

On Tuesday, President Obama signed an executive order convening an interagency taskforce to coordinate the role of the federal government in combating childhood obesity. We believe that this is especially important, as a successful plan for addressing childhood obesity cannot rest in one department or agency. 

Healthy Schools Campaign has actively engaged federal agencies including the USDA, Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services on these policy issues, and we will continue to do so. Some of our specific recommendations were detailed in Healthy and Ready to Learn: Lessons from Chicago, a report released early last year.

This is a time of great excitement and promise, and we are thankful and energized by the First Lady’s commitment to this work. 

When the issue of childhood obesity first captured public attention, many people did not consider it to be a serious public policy issue. Healthy Schools Campaign, our many partners, and others working in this important field have made significant progress in bringing attention, resources, understanding, and policy solutions to this issue.  With a champion in the White House, we are well positioned to make a tremendous difference in providing children with the opportunity to grow up to lead healthy and productive lives.

Top Blog Entries from 2009!

It's been a great year for the HSC blog, and we're proud that our readers have continued to visit day after day for fresh content, lively discussion and valuable information on ensuring a healthy future for all children. To ring in the new year, we've compiled a list of our most popular blog entries from 2009. (Drum roll...)

10. More Reasons for Recess

9. Good Luck to Cooking up Change Students From White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass

8. Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization - Let's Do it Right

7. New White House Chef Support Healthy School Lunches

6. Do Healthy Eating Habits Start at Home?

5. Kids May Go Hungry to Avoid Stigma of Free Meals

4. The Lunch That's Changing the Future of School Food

3. Secretary Vilsack Connects Healthy Eating and Reduction in Health Care Costs

2. A Parents Perspective on Asthma: Talking with Michelle Obama

-And #1-

1. Students Bring Healthy School Lunch to DC and Cook with White House Chef Sam Kass

Honorable mentions:

• This is Not Your Father's School Nurse
• My First Garden Meal of the Summer
• H1N1 and Green Cleaning in Schools

Happy New Year from all of us at HSC -- We look forward to seeing you again in 2010!

Kudos to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation & 7th-Grader Megan Davis: Improving Kids' Access to Physical Activity, Locally and Nationally

By Rochelle Davis, Founding Executive Director

Last week the W. K.  Kellogg Foundation announced an investment of $32.5 million to improve children’s access to healthy food and physical activity. They are supporting efforts that bring together community stakeholders to address policy and community barriers. 

It is great to see a foundation like Kellogg understand the need to make fundamental changes to children’s environments and to make such a significant commitment to address the problem of childhood obesity.  

There are many barriers to providing children with access to healthy food and opportunities for physical activity.  And it will take the cooperation of many to make meaningful and sustainable change.

While the Kellogg Foundation is making this large national commitment, I want to highlight the efforts of a seventh-grader in Northbrook, Ill. who is doing her part to address some of the barriers that exist to being physically active. In the spirit of full disclosure, the seventh-grader, Megan Davis, is my niece.  For the second year in a row she has been collecting bikes and scooters and delivering them to children whose families are not able to afford them. This year Megan was successful in collecting 120 bikes.

Kudos to the Kellogg Foundation and to Megan Davis for doing their part to improve children’s access to healthy food and physical activity.