4 school nutrition trends making waves at rural and small school districts

At nonprofit Action For Healthy Kids (AFHK), Nutrition Program Managers work with hundreds of schools across the country to help them improve their nutrition programs. Most recently, the Program Managers have focused on small and rural school districts as part of the AFHK’s and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards program.

Here are four trends Program Managers have noticed as they’ve worked with these smaller and more rural districts around the country.

School nutrition teams are doubling down on engaging with other departments in their district as well as additional partners in their community.

“I have noticed that our small and rural districts just really have a strong sense of community connection,” says Nutrition Program Manager Jenna Kaczmarski. “So, they also really lean into collaborating beyond students with, you know, these other departments in their district or their other community partners.”

Farm-to-school initiatives are one of main ways school nutrition teams are working with those in their communities. Some are even taking their gardens to campus.

At a handful of the districts that Nutrition Program Manager Neha Patel works with, for example, hydroponics are being used to give students a first-hand look at where their food comes from.

“Hydroponics is something that is big in my region with a few schools, so they've really, seen a lot of student engagement, a lot of parent engagement with that, she says.

At many of the schools Kaczmarski works with, the nutrition teams have made extra effort to work with students to create a menu that reflects their cultural heritage. One primary way schools have been able to do this is through student advisory committees.

“A lot of them are using student input to increase the cultural diversity of their meals and really finding out what that means for their students, what they'd like to see,” she says.  

Scratch-made dishes have been popping up on menus for some years now but Kaczmarski expects the trend to get a boost thanks to upcoming changes to the School Nutrition Standards by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“Everyone is really focused on implementing those and being in compliance,” she says. “And so, I think we're going to continue to see this move to scratch cooking.”

The new standards place further restrictions on things like sodium and sugar in school meals. By switching to speed-scratch and scratch-made menu items, nutrition teams will have better control over what goes into their dishes and can better meet the new regulations.

“That really gives them more ability to get within those nutrition standards, whether it's reducing sugar or salt,” Kaczmarski adds.

Getting students to not only try new foods but also understand where they come from and how they affect their health, has been a focus for many of the school districts that the nutrition managers have worked with.

At some schools, nutrition teams are using flyers, newsletters and more to educate students about the foods offered in the lunch line, while at other districts, students have a chance to take a class dedicated to nutrition education.

“I can think of a couple examples from districts that I'm working with that they are actually implementing a class where they're offering their students an opportunity to have a class that is specifically focused on gardening or teaching students about cooking and growing fresh foods and trying new recipes that are then also served in the cafeteria as well,” says Nutrition Program Manager Raschell Downer.

Nutrition education also extends to the nutrition staff preparing the meals, says Nutrition Program Manager Emma Kitzman, and will become even more important as they continue to make the transition to preparing more scratch made dishes.

“In order for [staff] to scratch cook and utilize more real food, I have grantees really wanting their staff members to have a better understanding of whole health and fresh foods,” she says.