For children in high-poverty communities, school meals are often a critical source of nutrition, and can also help offset grocery budgets for low-income households. Responding to a need to address record low school meal program participation in Tompkins County, a team of Cornell MPH students and faculty partnered with Newfield Central School District and Cornell Cooperative Extension to explore barriers and opportunities with different stakeholder groups.

The team’s research was especially timely, considering forthcoming changes to school food funding. Before 2020, over 50% of families in Newfield schools qualified for free or reduced-price school meals. While the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) has provided students across the country with universal free meals since 2020, school food budgets historically depend on families opting into the National School Lunch Program, which declined in participation by almost half nationwide from 2010-2020. FFCRA waivers are set to expire in 2022, and school districts will again depend on meal program participation to ensure sufficient funds for supporting meals programs and feeding students.

Through a partnership with the local Cornell Cooperative Extension and Childhood Nutrition Collaborative, Cornell MPH assistant professor of practice Dr. Elizabeth Fox, Cornell ’09, ’16, an expert in qualitative nutrition research, recruited five food systems and health concentration students to explore Newfield’s school food environment using rapid ethnographic assessment (REA) methods. REA is a community-driven research approach that “centers marginalized voices” to inform action that “reflects local realities,” and “captures perspectives of stakeholders in school lunch that aren’t always reflected in research and policy,” says Francesca DiGiorgio. DiGiorgio was one of the five MPH students to gain in-depth experience with these time sensitive, cost-effective qualitative methods.

To develop policy recommendations for Newfield, other local districts, and non-profit partners supporting school food improvements in the region, the five MPH students interviewed children, parents, and food service workers to assess Newfield’s overall school food environment, including marketing and farm-to-school efforts.

Children

“Children are often the focus of behavior change research, but not involved in designing or evaluating interventions,” DiGiorgio points out. “There is evidence to show that children’s development depends on the opportunity to be agents in their own dietary patterns,” she says. DiGiorgio believes children’s perspectives should be included both to improve research and “to empower kids to be involved in their roles in the food system.” Her interviews with 3rd-5th graders found that their school food priorities were often less about the food itself, and more about seeing friends from other classes, decompressing from the busy school day and just “having fun” at lunch. These priorities don’t always align with those of parents or administrators, of course, which DiGiorgio says illustrates “why we need to factor in kids’ perspectives” in school food policy decisions.

After graduation, DiGiorgio moved into a role as a child nutrition program specialist at Hunger Solutions New York, where she will continue working on school food programs across New York State.

Parents

“Some parents shared how school lunch supports their families and routines,” says Lockhart. She interviewed parents who both did and didn’t have kids participating in the school lunch program. Lockhart found that parents cared most about cost, time and convenience, the quality of food and nutrition, the variety of food choices offered, and their children’s preferences and dietary restrictions. “This research is not at all a way to tell a school how to run their food program better,” she points out. One of her recommendations was for schools to “promote the wins” to the larger community, showcasing “all the positive things they are doing.” She also found that reframing the cafeteria as a space for learning, rather than just a place to “get food and move on with the day,” could appeal to parents.

In addition to her MPH studies, Lockhart spent time in Ithaca on a photography project funded by the Cornell Council for the Arts called confluencial, representing Black and Indigenous peoples’ connections with landscapes. After graduation, she is pursuing work in nonprofit or policy spaces to further health equity.

Food Service

“School food service workers should feel their voices matter, and that their lived experiences are important for shaping policy decisions,” says Hauser, who worked in food service for seven years before pursuing an MPH. Hauser points out that “food service workers are integral to success,” since they interact with kids daily in the cafeteria and “shape kids’ interactions” with their school food. To Hauser, it was important to showcase the priorities workers face in the school food environment. Emergent themes from Hauser’s research included competing priorities of time, budgets, and food appeal, as well as interactions between the school and parents and between workers and kids. Hauser’s recommendations include investing in ways to increase these interactions and to “empower food service workers to influence nutrition decisions.”

After graduation, Hauser began a position as a program specialist with the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Marketing

“I was interested in finding out if what school food service staff want kids to experience is actually what they are experiencing, and if not, what we can do about it,” says Witherow. In her research, Witherow found that students are prone to neophobia—or avoiding foods they don’t recognize. While there is some real enthusiasm about school lunch at Newfield because of the efforts of food service workers who take the time to “go out and talk to the kids,” says Witherow, “the information isn’t always landing the way it could.” She advocates for low-cost, simple additions to promotional efforts, like changing the position of a white board with information about what’s in the day’s meals, and making the website more accessible while highlighting farm-to-school days on the calendar.

Witherow is a freelance health communications and graphic design consultant in nonprofit, advocacy and research spheres, based in the Ithaca area.

Farm-to-School

“I wanted to find out what parents and children at Newfield know about farm-to-school (F2S) and its impacts on the local food system,” says Montero. F2S is a national initiative to bring fresh, local, seasonal ingredients into schools. At Newfield, F2S includes harvest of the month recipes, taste tests in the cafeteria, and a school garden program, but Montero says, “these have been inconsistent, especially since the pandemic.” According to Montero, parents and children saw F2S as an opportunity to try new things, but they were not necessarily aware of whether a given meal’s ingredients were locally sourced. Parents wanted to know more about the ingredients and the process of sourcing food than what they could find from the menus the school sends home. Montero’s recommendations include updating menus with more details on local farms and ingredients featured and continuing to partner with Cooperative Extension and their F2S education coordinators.

After graduation, Montero began a position as strategic planning analyst for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where she had been a food standards intern.

Written by Audrey Baker