The Institute is a year-long professional learning opportunity for a select number of school/district teams from across Massachusetts. Institute teams gather at a Fall retreat to develop a Farm to School action plan for the year and to network with other participating schools and districts. Teams are supported throughout the year with regular Institute meetings, and convene in the Spring for an end-of-year celebration to review each team’s annual accomplishments and create a vision for the future.
This year our teams hailed from Northampton, Salem, Westport, and Worcester Head Start. Here are some reflections from the different Institute teams about their experiences and the various farm to school programs they were able to implement this year!
Northampton Public Schools
Northampton Public Schools is no stranger to Farm to School Programming, they even have their own Instagram page (@eatfreshampton) dedicated to celebrating and promoting local food and educating their students about nutrition and food choice. The team started the year off by defining what “local” meant to them, both for the purpose of procurement of produce, and in deciding a radius for engaging with community partners and neighboring school gardens. They also are in the beginning stages of piloting a compost initiative in their school system, starting with the high school with plans to expand to their elementary schools as well.
One of the biggest focuses of Northampton’s Freshampton Initiative is elevating the voice and choice of the kids. They frequently hold taste tests in the elementary schools of new recipes based on Harvest of the Month ingredients and encourage the kids to vote for their favorites to be added to the school lunch menu! They hosted a logo contest to solicit designs for their current Freshampton logo, giving $100 to the winners and choosing to use a combined version of the winning designs. Looking towards the future, the Northampton institute team hopes to use the money from the MA FRESH grant they recently received to hire a classroom farm to school educator to work in all of their K-12 classrooms, to organize field trips, and to provide an internship program for their high school students!
Salem Public Schools
Salem Public Schools developed an action plan that focused on connecting with and strengthening relationships with a number of community partners including the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts, Essex North Shore Agricultural Technical School and, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, to name a few. The Institute team at Salem attempts to view all facets of their program through an equity lens. To achieve this goal, they conduct surveys to assess staff comfort and ability to take students into the garden, collect student feedback about cafeteria meals and garden planning, and serve culturally relevant meals in the cafeteria. They also make meals available to families by sending home scaled-down versions of bulk cafeteria recipes to serve a family of four.
Salem gets a lot of mileage out of their garden, as they do not limit themselves to only using it for agriculture or even science education. The team has made great efforts to make their garden a safe space for social-emotional learning, science classes, writing, reading, physical education and more! Salem has developed a K-5 Farm to School curriculum touching on a variety of subjects for use throughout the district. They had a professional development day at the offices of their partner, New Entry, to highlight their work using a USDA planning grant! They also partner with the University of Massachusetts Amherst Nutrition program to have, “Salad Days,” in the garden where an educator comes to teach the kids nutrition lessons based on what they are growing. Looking forward, the Salem team plans to post a land acknowledgement honoring the Naumkeag tribe that once inhabited the land that the Carlton Innovation School garden sits on, and is searching for more funding- whether through implementation grants or budget allocations from the district- to implement more Farm to School initiatives.
Westport Community Schools
Westport Community Schools is newer to Farm to School programming, but that did not stop their Institute team from hitting the ground running, particularly in the realm of physical education. To start themselves off on the right foot, they developed their district’s program values. The Westport Institute team’s vision is to plant knowledge and cultivate community, and their mission is to encourage students, teachers, and families to grow in ecological literacy, health, and sustainability. In their first year, they have focused on their elementary school with lots of activities happening in first and second grade classrooms, such as composting, harvesting, and learning about plant life cycles. Westport also hosts weekly tastings based on Harvest of the Month featured food items and more, challenging the kids to take pictures of themselves trying various fruits and vegetables at home to be displayed on a monitor in the school cafeteria.
Third and fourth graders get to have a lot of fun in the outdoor gardens weeding, making compost, and using their math skills to determine the necessary spacing between their kale, lettuce, snap pea, collard green, and garlic plants. The Westport Institute team put together a field day event based on a group activity conducted during the FTS Institute Retreat in October.
Westport was able to incorporate unique & fun indoor Farm to School activities through their physical education department. As can be seen on their instagram account (@wes_healthwellness) they have done activities such as a Three Sisters Showdown- a team event based on the Native American principle of growing squash, beans, and corn together, and a Cheeseburger Run- teaching the kids about food sourcing by looking at the geographic origins of each component in a cheeseburger! There are a lot of farms in the Westport area, and the Institute team has plans to take field trips to visit cows and show food growing on a much larger scale to the children.
Worcester Head Start
Worcester Head Start had a great year being a part of the Farm to School Institute, working together with their coach, Eliza Lawrence of the Regional Environmental Council to create a well developed annual action plan. Their plan included recruiting volunteers, having a professional development farm to school kickoff event, working to connect with families, and developing fun nutrition education activities for children.
At the professional development kickoff day they introduced the Farm to School mission to all their classroom teachers and recruited farm to school ambassadors for each of their four early care centers. The teachers had the opportunity to practice making recipes using new equipment, and all the equipment and food staples have been made available to teachers throughout the year.
Eliza helped Head Start create a mobile mini-farmer’s market for the children, where they were able to “shop,” gathering items from their list, and working their way around child-sized tables. At the end of the market they were able to take all the produce home (provided by the Regional Environmental Council) with them.
Looking to the future, Worcester Head Start would like to be able to fund paid farm to school ambassador positions at each center, host a Farmers’ Market run by children for their parents, and start a hydroponic growing program. You can read more about their farm to school programs here.
Phone: (413) 253-3844
Email: info@massfarmtoschool.org
