Front Page
By Theresa Kelly Gegen
Twenty-nine years ago, in the midst of the national attention paid to the documentary “Supersize Me” and local attention on junk food bans, the Illinois School Board Journal and other IASB publications produced a series called “Weighing Healthier Options,” introducing the topic of childhood obesity and what school districts were doing to address the concerns. School districts were responding to legislation passed requiring the implementation of wellness policies and reviews of the nutritional value of school-provided meals.
Ten years later, the topic was revisited in the Journal in light of new laws and new attention paid to hunger in society, especially among children. The Journal reported that 70,000 children were “going to bed hungry” in Illinois, and discussed the demands placed on schools as a part of the social safety net addressing hunger and food insecurity.
We revisit that revisit with this issue of the Journal. Although the focus can change, topics surrounding food, nutrition, healthy options, and paying for it all remain constant in Illinois and throughout the nation. Such issues were brought to the forefront during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when schools and communities juggled, transformed, and invented creative measures to feed children, who would otherwise have benefited from school meals, during the lockdowns and school facility closures.
For many kids, schools are the primary, and sometimes only, source of food. Boards of education, charged with setting the goals and direction of the district, recognize this and understand that healthy children learn better. This Journal offers some current, foundational information for school board members to consider as they discuss food service, nutrition education, and other health-related topics.
Obviously, the school board isn’t going to show up in the kitchen next Monday to help out. Even if you’re trained as a food handler, it would be entirely against the letter and spirit of your governance role. We know that Journal readers come from different points of view and different levels of experience. And we like to offer insights into current topics, news, and challenges affecting school boards.
In case you missed it, an additional resource for those interested in hearing more on the topics of food, education, and food education, is a webinar presented in June by the Consortium of State School Boards Associations and its Urban Boards Alliance. “Food Insecurity and Public Education” was moderated by Ronaldo Gomez, Director of Business Development for Sodexo, and featured panelists Robert S. Harvey, D.Min., President of Foodcorps; Geeta Maker-Clark, M.D., Director of Integrative Nutrition and Advocacy, and Director of Culinary Medicine at the University of Chicago; Topaz Arthur, National Manager for Education and School Foods with No Kid Hungry; and Roxanne Moore, Executive Director of the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. They shared insights into the impacts of food insecurity on families and steps districts can take to assist families in their communities. Their perspectives offer an excellent immersion into the topic that I think school board members find value in. The webinar is available at COSSBA.org, at no cost to COSSBA members for on-demand viewing.
We also take a few pages of this issue to welcome the new Executive Director of the Illinois Association of School Boards. Thanks to Kimberly Small, J.D., for sharing her thoughts in the Journal, starting on page 11, as she leads the Association into its next chapter.