USDA's New School Meal Patterns

On April 20, 2012 PDE and Project PA sponsored two webinars about the new USDA New School Meal Patterns. The following links are for both sessions. Identical material was presented in each, but the question and answer segments are different.

Morning Rebroadcast

Afternoon Rebroadcast

School Nutrition Toolbox | Training Site for PA School Foodservice

The Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Pennsylvania State University have collaborated to provide free web-based administrative training for National School Lunch (NSLP) sponsors in Pennsylvania. Eight training courses are currently available: Eligibility Determination, Verification, Meal Counting and Claiming, NSLP Annual Training, School Meals Initiative, Overview of School Nutrition Programs, Serving Students with Special Needs, and Breakfast: The Most Important Lesson of the Day.

Click on button to register for a course.

Two More Courses Added to SNToolbox.

Share Your Promising Practice

Schools can play a critical role in the national effort to improve children’s diet and physical activity habits. Many schools are implementing creative strategies to do so. Through this Promising Practices reporting site, we would like to hear about what you are doing related to the areas described below. Selected activities will be featured on this site.

Submit Your Promising Practice.

Your School Wellness Policy: What You Need to Know

Now that schools have established local wellness policies, they are working on implementing those policies. Teachers can play a vital role in this effort by integrating nutrition education and physical activity into their classrooms, following the established nutrition guidelines when offering food in the classroom, supporting the school meals programs and serving as positive role models for students.

Downloadable Whole Wheat Kit

Considerable scientific evidence suggests that eating whole grains such as whole wheat reduces the risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers. A Healthy People 2010 objective establishes a recommended intake of three servings of whole grains per day. At present, few children in the United States are meeting these recommendations. School meals represent a strategic point of intervention for children, because the majority of schools in the United States participate in the National School Lunch Program.

Creative strategies to maintain successful breakfast programs are employed in many of Pennsylvania's schools. Foodservice staff at these schools, often in collaboration with personnel from other disciplines and from the community at large, devise innovative plans for increasing breakfast participation rates and improving the nutritional quality of breakfast items, all while gaining support from various stakeholders. Transforming a section of the school library into a cafe, using peer education to promote breakfast, serving breakfast in the hallways, and inviting parents to participate in the breakfast program are just a few of the many success stories described here. The schools and districts represented in this collection have shared their successful tactics by way of Project PA's "Promising Practices" reporting system. These School Breakfast Promising Practices offer insight and advice about beginning and sustaining successful breakfast programs for all grade levels, elementary through high school.

View the collection of breakfast promising practices.

Project PA partners with schools and their communities to provide sound nutrition education and  promote children's healthy eating behaviors. School breakfast is an integral component in the process of achieving these goals. Thus, Project PA offers the resources listed on this page to help schools establish and maintain successful breakfast programs.

Download Promising Practices 2008/09

In late 2008 and early 2009, Project PA, a collaboration between the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Division of Food and Nutrition, and the Penn State University Department of Nutritional Sciences, collected “Promising Practices” submitted by Pennsylvania schools related to Coordinated School Health. Coordinated School Health is an initiative of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which includes eight components which work together to address students’ health needs and contribute to improvements in health and learning. This manual includes descriptions of 51 of these “Promising Practices” that can be used as models for implementing activities to improve students’ health and wellness. For more information about Coordinated School Health, go to: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyYouth/CSHP/.

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Download Promising Practices for Implementing Your Local Wellness Policy 2007/08

Schools throughout Pennsylvania are implementing creative and successful strategies to promote healthier eating and physical activity for students. We’d like to share these strategies with other schools. A collection of Promising Practices submitted on the Project PA website were distributed at a Wellness Policy conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and Pennsylvania Action for Healthy Kids (PA AFHK) in the Spring of 2007.

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