By Andrea Northup, DC Farm to School Network
Finally, D.C. Public Schools appear to be getting serious about reforming school food.
You wouldn’t know it from Ed Bruske’s recent six-part series detailing the processed and sugar-injected foods currently being served in the city’s schools. But schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee seems to be getting the picture. Two weeks ago she appointed a new director of School Food Services to make some serious changes in school cafeterias across the District. It’s a position that was unfilled since the previous director was fired a year ago.
The new appointee, Jeffrey Mills, comes from the restaurant industry in New York. After doing some contracted work for D.C. Public Schools a year ago, he embraced the idea of school food reform and specifically the Michelle Obama-Alice Waters vision of school gardens and local foods as a way to address children’s health and education issues.
Jeff is working on a strategic plan to transform school meals in the District into a model of healthfulness and sustainability. As best I can tell, he has a green light from Rhee’s office to map out a cost-effective means of getting there. All operational models are on the table, Jeff says, including requiring higher quality foods from the system’s current food service provider—Chartwells—to possibly finding another provider or even returning to the days when D.C. schools managed school food services themselves.
Changes could bring turmoil in the coming months. Jeff says he plans to engage parents and students; establish creative community partnerships; drive up student participation in the subsidized meals program; make food service more environmentally friendly; make cafeteria environments more conducive to healthful eating. The bottom line: more healthful, appealing, and sustainably produced foods.
The hard part will be to prioritize these changes and put them into place systematically, all within the limits of budgets that are severely strained. Even more difficult: doing this as a newcomer to the District without any school food service experience. It’s no small task, and that’s why we’re here to help.
We at the D.C. Farm to School Network are excited to have Jeffrey Mills on board and to see school officials open to the type of changes we need to get farm-to-school up and running in the District. We’re doing our best to arm Jeff with the tools he needs to tackle ambitious plans. I’ve been introducing him to revolutionary food service providers across the country: Bob Bloomer in Chicago, Jean Ronnei in St. Paul, Minn., Doug Davis in Burlington, Vermont, Tony Geraci in Baltimore, to name a few.
I am also introducing Jeff to local growers, distributors and producers. We have plans to visit schools that are buying food directly from local farmers and forging creative community partnerships. Jeff is attending farm-to-school conferences and workshops. D.C. Public Schools are applying to be the next School Food FOCUS Learning Lab District, which would bring a national organization to D.C. to help develop a road map to improve the quality, healthfulness and sustainability of school meals.
The wheels are turning, both on the farm-to-school front and for school healthful meals in general. Let’s see where we go from here!
Andrea Northup is coordinator of the D.C. Farm to School Network.
This all sounds good. Typically new people come in talking a good game. And, of course talk is cheap. Maybe I’m just a bit more skeptical than some–you’ve got to show me.
This is great news.
I’d like to know more about the learning district.Can you point me to a website?
Thru DCBiotech we are helping establish biotech career pathways at McKinley Tech and Ballou and would be happy to facilitate research projects the students could participate in thru courses we’d help develop in plant science.
Regards,
Toby Horn