Help Save Healthy Schools Funding

Looking for something you can do to save the $4.7 million outgoing D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is trying to cut from school meals funding? Read on:

As you probably know, the landmark DC Healthy Schools Act was unanimously passed into law earlier this year, and fully funded with a 6% sales tax on soda. But Mayor Fenty proposed in his Budget Gap-Closing Plan to eliminate $5.2 million in the FY 2011 budget for the DC Healthy Schools Act, and to delay implementation of the Act indefinitely.

We need your help! Please take a moment to join the D.C. Farm to School Network in telling the DC Council to reject the Mayor’s proposal, and ensure that the Healthy Schools Act is fully funded in the current Fiscal Year budget.

Just take these three, easy steps:

1) Sign-on as an individual or organization to our letter urging Councilmembers to fully fund the DC Healthy Schools Act.

2) Call your Councilmember during our Phone-In on Monday December 6^th, between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.

a. Share how you have been affected by the DC Healthy Schools Act, and why you think it’s important. For example, you can say: “I am a resident of Ward X, and I ask that the Councilmember ensure the full funding of the DC Healthy Schools Act in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.” Follow this link to find your ward.

b. Tell them: “I also believe that DC Council should take a balanced approach to closing the budget gap – it should choose to raise revenue rather than cut the Healthy Schools Act and other vital programs like Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Adult Job Training, Grandparent Caregiver, Childcare Subsidies, Interim Disability Assistance, and the Local Rent Supplement Program. As a taxpayer in the District, I encourage the Council to vote for a one percent income tax increase on income above $200,000 to help fund these programs.”

3) Email your Councilmember directly to tell him or her you fully support the Healthy Schools Act and a balanced approach to closing the budget gap.

Share this Action Alert with your networks. We must act now! The Council will vote on the Budget Gap-Closing Plan on Tuesday, December 7.

Thank you for your continued efforts and support.

Testifying for Healthy Schools

Given before the D.C. Council yesterday, as it considers removing funds for better school food in the District as part of a plan proposed by outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty to close a $188 million budget gap.

My name is Andrea Northup and I coordinate the D.C. Farm to School Network, a program of the Capital Area Food Bank. The Network aims to improve child health in the District by increasing access to healthy, local food in school meals.

My message for you today is that the Council must maintain funding in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget for the Healthy Schools Act. Specifically, I urge you to reject the section of the Mayor’s Gap-Closing Plan that calls for elimination of funding and FTE’s for Healthy Schools Act initiatives in the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and the Office of Public Education Facilities Management.

The Healthy Schools Act has attracted national recognition for its comprehensive approach to improving child health and wellness. The Act sets high standards for school nutrition, expands access to school meals, increases physical and health education requirements, and more. For the more than 70,000 children currently attending D.C. Public and public charter schools, the proposed $5.2 million in cuts to Healthy Schools Act implementation would be a major step backward, just as the city is making real strides in its struggle against the rising tides of childhood obesity and hunger.

Half of Washington, DC youth are at risk of hunger, a third live in poverty and over a third of all District youth are obese or overweight. Most get their main meals each day at school, especially during these tough economic times. Hunger and malnutrition have serious effects on child health, cognitive function, growth and development. If left underserved, these at-risk youth will become drains on the District’s dime as unhealthy, unproductive adults. It’s shortsighted not to see the costs that will accrue down the road if we don’t act to address the epidemics of child hunger and obesity NOW.

In May 2010, the Council unanimously enacted the Healthy Schools Act, then approved a 6 percent sales tax on soda to secure an estimated $8 million to fund the Act. We must NOT allow the Mayor to take away this funding that was promised specifically for the health and well-being of schoolchildren in the District of Columbia. Difficult choices must be made in this harsh economy, but the health of vulnerable children in the District must NOT be compromised.

Doing so would counter the recent momentum of Healthy Schools Act implementation. Schools have made serious investments in order to comply with the Act’s strong nutrition requirements, banking on funding incentives in the Act. Healthier, tastier meals are being served in cafeterias city-wide. Schools have re-written contracts with their food service vendors. Jobs have been created as schools replace processed convenience food with from-scratch meals using high quality ingredients. More students are participating in school meals, and parents and students are behind the reforms. Schools CAN NOT sustain changes like these without Healthy Schools Act funding, even though healthier meals been overwhelmingly well-received.

The rest of the nation is watching these changes taking place in the District with a critical eye. Will the Council step up and fully fund the Healthy Schools Act, and prove that we can reverse some of the nation’s highest child poverty and obesity rates? Or will the Council sit idly by as funding promised to D.C. children gets absorbed into the city coffers? Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and feel free to contact me with further questions.

Help Save Healthy D.C. Schools

The Healthy Schools Act, which provides more money for better meals in D.C. schools, is under attack. Outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed slashing the $4.7 million allocated under the act as part of a plan to balance the District's budget.

The D.C. Council is scheduled to hold hearings on the budget Tuesday. Meanwhile, if you believe it's important for children to have access to better food, you can support the Healthy Schools Act by signing an online petition.

The city has made great strides with its school food in recent months as it tries to battle a childhood obesity rate that is one of the worst in the nation. This is no time to be snatching better food out of kids' mouths at school.

Taking Food Out of Hungry Kids' Mouths

Will D.C. Council play Scrooge?

Charles Dickens could not have written a more sinisterly cruel plot.

Having given D.C. kids a huge break by putting better food on school cafeteria trays, outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council are now poised to snatch it away in order to balance the city's budget.

Fenty has targeted nearly $4.7 million in funds designated under the Healthy Schools Act to pay for healthier breakfasts and lunches and to encourage schools to use locally grown products in school meals. In August, when the current school year started. the effect of the bill was immediately apparent. Not only did fresh, local fruits and vegetables appear on kids' trays for the first time in recent memory, but more kids were eating the meals because the schools started serving breakfast in the classroom. The Healthy Schools bill also paid extra for lunches so that low-income children who are entitled to reduced-price meals didn't have to.

Fenty's budget proposal, aimed at balancing a $188 million shortfall in the District's coffers, would erase all of that, threatening a giant step backwards at the very moment it appeared the city was making real strides in its struggle with the health crisis known as childhood obesity. Healthy Schools placed D.C. at the forefront of jurisdictions trying to rescue kids from junk food. Fenty would send us backsliding into rank indifference.

But just when you thought the mayor couldn't look any more Scrooge-like in this Christmas season--snatching food out of kids' mouths--his budget maneuver smacks odiferously of bait-and-switch. The $4.7 million in question consists of tax revenues that were supposed to be specially designated for the Healthy School initiative. At least that's what we were told.

If you'll recall, during the many months D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh spent writing and hashing out and holding hearings on the Healthy School legislation, the nagging question arose again and again: where would she get the money to pay for it? Cheh vowed that she would find the cash, and just weeks before the bill was to come up for a vote she proposed a controversial excise tax that would have raised the price of soft drinks.

The so-called soda tax would have produced more money than Cheh actually needed, raising the prospects for all kinds of new programs, like school gardens, while also taking a bite out of obesity by discouraging people from drinking sugar. But the beverage industry was having none of that. They scuttled the soda tax. Undeterred, Cheh managed to get the funding she needed by convincing the Council to extend the city's 5.7 percent sales tax to sodas, which previously had been treated like food--meaning not taxed.

As best we can determine, that's the money Fenty would take out of the D.C. Public Schools food budget and use elsewhere. We're waiting for Cheh to scream bloody murder, but so far we've heard barely a whimper: "I’m trying to be open-minded about this," she told The Washington Post last week. "If everyone is going to feel the pain, everything is going to be on the table.”

Now it's up to the Council to decide which version of Christmas D.C. schoolchildren will have. Will there be real food on the table? Or will Tiny Tim find a lump of coal in his Yuletide stocking?

Hearings on the budget are scheduled for Tuesday.

Fenty Would Axe Healthy Schools Funding

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

When times get tough, the first thing to go apparently is better school food.

Outgoing D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, attempting to close a $188 million gap in the city's budget, has proposed eliminating funds that had been designated for better school meals as part of a "Healthy Schools" initiative approved earlier this year.

The budget measure would halt payment of some $4.6 million that was to pay an extra 10 cents for every breakfast served in D.C. Public Schools, an extra 10 cents for every lunch, and five cents for every lunch meal that contained a locally grown component.

The legislation, which was months in the making and funded only after a dramatic controversy over a proposed "soda tax," had placed the District of Columbia in the forefront of local jurisdictions attempting to improve the quality of meals children eat at school.

The extra funding, in addition to some $7 million in deficit spending the schools currently contribute to the food program, would have made D.C. one of the most generous school districts in the country where its meals are concerned.

Healthier food advocates today were scrambling to determine exactly what effect Fenty's proposed budget measure would have. It was thought that the funds in question had been garnered exclusively by placing a sales tax on soft drink and were dedicated to funding better school meals.

The "Healthy Schools" legislation took effect at the beginning of the current school year in August and had an immediate impact on the meal service. Because I monitor breakfast and lunch service at my daughter's elementary school, I could see that fruits and vegetables grown here in the Mid-Atlantic region ere appearing on kids' cafeteria trays on a daily basis.

At the same time, a new food services director for D.C. Public Schools, Jeffrey Mills, had removed flavored milk as well as a number of sugary, processed foods such as Pop-Tarts and Apple Jacks from the schools and had completely revamped the menu served by Chartwells, the system's hired food service provider.

D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), who authored the bill and had spent months working out its details with various local non-profit groups, health authorities and food access advocates, told The Washington Post, "I'm trying to be open-minded about this. If everyone is going to feel the pain, everything is going to be on the table,"

Andrea Northup, coordinator of the D.C. Farm to School Network, who was one of the leaders in crafting the school food aspects of the legislation, vowed to fight the proposed budget action.

"For the Fenty administration to champion the Healthy Schools Act as a model for the nation, and then to cut funding for the act, they have done a grave disservice to the children of the District of Columbia," Northup said. "We're talking about high-risk youth: three in four are at risk of hunger, one in three are overweight or obese, and most eat their daily meals at school. As an advocacy community, we won't let this stand."

Legislation that would add a mere six cents to the $2.72 the federal government pays for a subsidized lunch is stalled in Congress because it would be funded by more than $2 billion taken from the food stamp program.

D.C. to Pay for "Healthy Schools" with Sales Tax on Sodas

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

The D.C. Council yesterday agreed to fully fund the recently approved "Healthy Schools" initiative, but not with the "soda tax" proposed by Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3). Rather, the city will begin imposing a more traditional sales tax of six percent on all soft drinks sold in the District.

What, you might be asking, is the difference between these two approaches to taxing sodas?

The beverage industry vigorously campaigned against the 1-cent excise tax on sodas because it would have raised the shelf price that consumers see when they purchase soft drinks. The sales tax of six percent, by contrast, appears only on the sales receipt after beverages have been purchased.

Although the industry also opposed the sales tax, it brings the District in line with neighboring Maryland, which already taxes soft drinks at six percent. Virginia levies a much lower 2.5 percent sales tax.

D.C. council members were more comfortable with the traditional sales tax approach because it is already familiar, in contrast to the more progressive excise tax, which was aimed not only at raising money to improve food served in the District's public schools, but also was seen as a weapon to combat obesity by making sugary sodas more expensive.

The penny-per-ounce excise tax would have only applied to sugar-sweetened beverages. Diet drinks, calorie-free drinks, juices (with at least 70% juice), milk, coffee, and tea would have been excluded. The six percent sales tax applies also to artificially sweetened beverages, including diet and zero-calorie drinks, sports drinks and energy drinks. It will not apply to beverages containing milk, coffee, juice or tea.

The one-cent excise tax also had a cap of 30 cents per container.

The six percent sales tax is projected to raise more revenue--$7.92 million annually--than the penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages--$6.3 million. Costs associated with the "Healthy Schools" initiative are expected to run about $6.5 million per year.

But the "soda tax" may not be dead. An aide to Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), who authored the "Healthy Schools" legislation, said last night she will continue to press for the one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages sold in the city. "Because the obesity epidemic is such a enormous health crisis in the District (73% and 72% of residents in Ward 7 and 8 are overweight or obese!), Councilmember Cheh plans to continue to push for a penny-per-ounce excise tax because it is a good health policy."

Stay tuned.

Your Support Still Needed for "Healthy Schools"

By Andrea Northup

As the Coordinator of the D.C. Farm to School Network, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Councilmember Mary Cheh’s office on a landmark piece of legislation - the Healthy Schools Act. The Act passed through the final Council vote on Tuesday May 4th. It now goes on to the Mayor’s desk for his approval, then to a 30-day consideration period in the U.S. Congress. Then the bill becomes a law, funding is secured, and its provisions are implemented.

I had the good fortune to run into the Mayor a few weeks ago as he campaigned in my neighborhood. When I asked Mayor Fenty if he would pass the Healthy Schools Act, he claimed enthusiastically that as a champion for the District’s schoolchildren he “couldn’t wait to sign the Healthy Schools Act.” Let’s hope he keeps his word and moves the legislation forward!

The next step is to be sure that this bill is funded. The Council is holding a Healthy Schools Act Revenue Hearing on May 12th - watch for the details on www.healthyschools.marycheh.com. We need to be at the Wilson Building in full force testifying about the importance of fully funding this bill. On May 26th, the Budget Support Act will be finalized. The BSA houses the Council’s amendments to the Mayor’s proposed budget, including revenues for legislation like the Healthy Schools Act.

But let’s go back to the long, involved process that led to this piece of legislation. As an advocate for more healthy, local and sustainable food in D.C. schools, my role was to reach out to the real experts here in the District who know school food. I talked with food service providers, producers and distributors, parents, teachers, kids, and other stakeholders along the chain from seed to cafeteria tray. I reached out to school food policy experts in other states, and on the national scale. I asked them all the same question - how can state-level policy help us get more healthy, local, sustainable foods into Washington, DC schools?

I had conversations, emails, meetings, and conference calls. And I wasn’t the only one - advocates and activists across the District gathered ideas, comments and concerns from their constituent bases. Councilmember Cheh’s staff pulled these ideas together in an inclusive, transparent and quite commendable way.

This is an important piece of legislation for many reasons. Like I said, creating the bill was transparent, open and “kosher.” Second, the bill acknowledges that child hunger, obesity and environmental degradation are complex issues, and it tackles those issues from a number of different angles. And third, Councilmember Cheh is dedicated to funding this bill. Whether through a “soda tax,” or other means, she assures us that her office will not rest until the bill is fully funded and implemented.

And we as advocates won’t rest until the issues of child hunger, obesity, and environmental degradation are at bay. We have a long road ahead, but this bill is one small step in a long, slow journey.

Andrea Northup is coordinator of the D.C. Farm to School Network.

Voting for "Healthy Schools"

By Andrea Northup

The Healthy Schools Act is On the Move!

The public hearing on the Healthy Schools Act on March 26th was well attended, and D.C. City Councilmembers heard an impressive contingent voice their support for the bill. Read some of the wonderful testimony and find more information about the act on Mary Cheh’s site.

On Monday April 19th (just a few days away!) the Committee on Government Operations and the Environment will vote on the bill. On Tuesday April 20th the Committee of the Whole will vote, and on Tuesday May 4th the entire council will take a final vote to pass the bill as a law!

How can you show your support?

1) Take a few seconds to sign the D.C. Farm to School Network’s online petition in support of farm to school in the Healthy Schools Act. Strengthen our voice for healthy, local food in D.C. schools!

2) Contact your councilmember this week and ask them to VOTE YES for the Healthy Schools Act on Tuesday April 20th and Tuesday May 4th! Call, email, or visit their office. Get your councilmember’s contact information here, and download a sample letter to email or send here. Your voice can make a difference.

3) Join the D.C. Farm to School Network on Monday April 19th at the Wilson Building to chat with councilmembers and staff, and encourage them to VOTE YES for the bill the next day! Please email andrea[at]dcfarmtoschool[dot]org if you’d like to join us.

4) Stay aware of updates and changes to the bill by checking Mary Cheh’s site and signing up for her email alerts. The D.C. Farm to School Network is also keeping track of the bill here.

Once the bill is passed, then we have to push for it to get funding in the budget… stay tuned!

Andrea Northup is coordinator of the D.C. Farm to School Network.

Testifying for "Healthy Schools"

Several friends of Better D.C. School Food testified yesterday before the D.C. Council on proposed "Healthy Schools" legislation. Ed Bruske has posted his testimony at his blog, The Slow Cook. We are endeavoring to find a way to display everyone's tetimony in a place where it can easily be seen. Meanwhile, here is the testimony of one of our founding members, Tara Flakker.

Hello. My name is Tara Flakker. I am here representing a relatively new organization, Parents for Better D.C. School Food, which arises out of the parents committee of the D.C. Farm to School Network, where I have been volunteering for the last several months.

For too long, parents in the District of Columbia have been relatively silent on the issue of the food being served in our public schools. But in the face of an epidemic of childhood obesity, it is time for parents to mobilize and join the struggle not only to make school food better, but to make lunch a teachable moment in which children can learn healthy eating habits that will last them into adulthood.

To that end, Parents for Better D.C. School Food is committed to reaching out to every PTA and other parents organization in the city to raise awareness about the need for a more healthful diet and to support efforts by school officials and local lawmakers to implement the necessary changes in our school cafeterias. So far, we have 40 members of our Google group, 80 “fans” of our Facebook page, and a blog where we post news about D.C. school food every day, including stunning--though not always entirely appetizing—photographs of school meals.

Therefore, we heartily support the “Healthy Schools Act” and its call for an integrated approach toward child wellness and a sustainable environment. Specifically, we support measures that would incorporate local farm products in school meals to make them more appetizing and nutritious. We support a sustainable, local agriculture. We support increased levels of exercise for all children. We support school gardens and local food initiatives that teach children where their food comes from. We believe that children who are engaged in the ways of growing and preparing foods are more willing to try healthful foods and embrace a healthier lifestyle.

We recognize that this legislation proposes to undo decades of policies that have short-changed school cafeterias and child wellness. That is no small task. But we are ready to do whatever it might take win this battle for our own kids and for the next generation.

My work with the D.C. Farm to School Network and now Parents for Better D.C. School Food is informed by my personal experience. I am the mother of two children attending public school on Capitol Hill. I am also an MSW and spent more than 10 years working with children and families before deciding to stay at home full-time with my family. I am also the granddaughter of a small dairy farmer in the mountains of north-central Pennsylvania. I know the importance of providing opportunities for local farmers. And because I have small children in school, I want to see them fed well. As a former social worker, I want all children to be fed well.

What do I mean by “well fed?” First and foremost, that means replacing the steady diet of highly processed foods currently practiced by D.C. schools with whole and minimally processed ingredients, hopefully grown by our own local farmers. It is a sad irony that the foods we know are healthiest—fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains—are also the foods kids like least. It will take a great deal of work—parents, teachers and administrators working together—to turn this around. But programs that involve local farmers, visits to farms, food demonstrations and classes, as proposed in the “Healthy Schools Act” are part of the solution. School gardens and things like after-school cooking classes centered on school gardens also are an invaluable tool for teaching children to appreciate where food comes from and a healthier way of eating. We cannot expect kids to learn these lessons from television, or from eating out of the corner convenience store.

In addition, school gardens can be a tremendous community asset and pull teachers, parents and local residents together. I live across the street from Watkins Elementary School, which has a wonderful school garden program already in place. The garden easily integrates science, art, reading and virtually every other aspect of learning in some form. It also serves to beautify the neighborhood.

I’d also like to speak for a moment specifically about what happens in school cafeterias. Unfortunately, most parents are unaware of the food being served at school except what they might hear second-hand from their children. Therefore, it is imperative that you adopt measures for more transparency in school food service, such as posting the ingredients in school meals in a place where all of us can see them. We are particularly concerned about the appalling level of sugar in school meals. In addition to the sugar served at breakfast and lunch, treats and candy are routinely given as rewards. My son has come home from school with a bag of cookies he received as a reward more times than I can count. Treats are great. But when they are provided at school, this limits my ability as a parent to offer the occasional treat, such as a piece of daddy’s leftover carrot cake. It is high time we limit the amount of sugar served at school.

We know that there already are many people who care about these issues. Teachers are ready and willing to teach about food where they can. Our school (name?) found the money to host its first parent meeting with real food made by a parent and local fresh food brought in for salads, appetizers and dessert. Everyone who attended was amazed and delighted. Parents and children alike asked where we got the apples and pears and salad because they had never tasted anything so good.

“Those Asian pears are like a party in your mouth” one parent remarked. And so the education begins.

Many children in D.C. eat two meals a day at school all year long, including summer programs. I and other Parents for Better D.C. School Food believe we owe it to our children to feed them properly, just as we ask them to do their best at learning. We should be nourishing the body, the mind and the spirit through food, education and physical activity. These concepts are all addressed in the “Healthy School Act.” With this bill, we can begin honoring our children by giving them what they need to be healthy adults.

$6.5 Million Tab for "Healthy Schools"

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Improved nutrition, easier access to school food and incorporating local produce in school meals would cost the District an estimated $6.5 million annually under proposed "Healthy Schools" legislation, according to the D.C. government's Chief Financial Officer, Natwar M. Gandi.

Gandi released written testimony yesterday indicating that most of that money would be spent on increasing the city's contribution to school meals by 10 cents for breakfast and 10 cents for lunch, as well as a 5 cent bonus for meals that contain locally grown products, free breakfast for all students and covering the cost currently paid by students who qualify for reduced-price meals under the federally-subsidized meal program.

The cost of the legislation, which had previously been undetermined, brought out a parade of charter school officials complaining that they did not have the means to pay for it. They appeared at hearings before D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), author of the bill.

"This is much like 'No Child Left Behind,' full of unfunded mandates," said Donald Hense, of Friendship Public Charter School. "The financial incentives are not enough for us to change our food service."

Along with setting healthier food standards, the legislation also mandates increased physical activity for children. Charter school officials said in many cases their schools have neither the funds nor the facilities to comply with the proposed standards. "How can charter schools implement all this?" said Josphine Baker, executive director of the Public Charter School Board. "Ten cents for breakfast and lunch is just barely enough. It could be cost prohibitive for all schools to use local produce. It's a challenge sometimes to provide both a rigorous education and healthy, nutritious meals."

Gandi estimated the total cost of the legislation for the city's charter schools at $1.6 million. Cheh vowed that she will find funding to cover all of the bills requirements. "We fully appreciate the costs," she said. "I'm working assiduously on getting that money. And I'm pretty much sure that I will get that money."

Cheh added that the legislation will save money in the long run in reduced health costs for city residents. "Even if it cost money and we didn't save money, how much is it worth to have people lead healthy lives?" Cheh said. "We will save money and have better lives.