Districts in 4th Cohort of Our Get Schools Cooking Program Improved Meals for 16,000 Students

Our goal with our Get Schools Cooking program is to equip school districts with the knowledge and skills they need to transition from serving students primarily ultra-processed, heat-and-serve meals to serving fresher, healthier, and more sustainable scratch-cooked meals. The program has helped 27 districts in 21 states serve more scratch-cooked school meals to approximately 180,000 students since 2016. 

We and our partners at the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact recently published a report sharing insights from a rigorous evaluation of the fourth cohort of districts to participate in Get Schools Cooking. This blog post shares three top insights from the cohort evaluation.

Want a copy of the full 92-page evaluation report? Request one by emailing us at evaluation@cheafannfoundation.org. You can also read the report’s executive summary.

Meet the Districts

The fourth cohort of Get Schools Cooking started the program in February 2020 and completed it in spring 2024. Four districts in four states made up this cohort:

• Franklin Special School District (Franklin, Tennessee)
• Manhattan-Ogden Unified School District (Manhattan, Kansas)
• South Madison Community School Corporation (Pendleton, Indiana)
• Wisconsin Rapids Public Schools (Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin)

Together, these districts enroll 16,000 K–12 students.

Insight #1 

Despite COVID-19 Disruptions, Districts Made Significant Progress Toward Scratch Cooking.

While our Get Schools Cooking program typically spans three years, we extended the program for districts in cohort four by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020 at the same time this cohort was set to begin. The pandemic disrupted supply chains, caused significant school food staff turnover, and increased food costs. 

Still, the school food staff in these districts were determined to continue their journey toward improving school meals for their students. They worked around setbacks and completed all major parts of the Get School Cooking program by spring 2024 — including developing and implementing multi-year plans to increase scratch cooking. 

These multi-year plans consisted of a custom set of recommendations from the Chef Ann Foundation that collectively ladder up to transitioning away from serving students ultra-processed foods to serving them scratch-cooked meals. Our recommendations span what we’ve identified as the five key areas of lasting school food change — food, finances, facilities, human resources, and marketing.

Despite the obstacles created by the COVID-19 pandemic, districts completed almost half (47%) of our 301 recommendations for school food change — a remarkable achievement. Of the remaining recommendations, over half are currently in progress. 

Insight #2

Districts Achieved an Average 47% Increase in the “Healthy Meal Score.”

To better understand the impact of Get Schools Cooking and our other school food change programs, we worked with the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact to develop and launch a new measurement tool called the Healthy Meal Score. 

The Healthy Meals Score measures changes across six domains that could indicate how healthy a district’s meals are:

1. Procurement: Has the district increased the amount of money it spends on fresh, whole ingredients?
2. Recipes: Has the district increased the percentage of scratch-made breakfast and lunch menu items?
3. Beverages: Has the district eliminated flavored milks?
4. Produce: Has the district increased the amount of money it spends on fresh fruits and vegetables?
5. A la carte: Has the district eliminated a la carte options — which are often sugary, ultra-processed foods and snacks — at elementary and secondary schools?
6. Commodities: Is the district fully using its commodity allocations, which are federal funds that can be used to purchase more fruits and vegetables as well as more whole and minimally processed ingredients through federal food programs?

Districts participating in this cohort were the first districts to use this tool. They made progress across all of the domains except for beverages, though several of the districts’ food service directors are planning to remove flavored milk within a few years (see figure above).

Districts achieved a combined average 47% increase in the Healthy Meal Score over their four years in the Get Schools Cooking program, which indicates significant progress toward improving the health of the meals they serve. 

Insight #3

Districts Used Their Systems Assistance Grant to Overcome Facilities Barriers That Hinder Scratch Cooking.

Sustaining & Scaling Change

The districts in the fourth cohort of our Get Schools Cooking program made significant progress toward transitioning to scratch cooking and improving the health of school meals despite the impacts and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Though their program experience has come to an end, the directors of the districts’ school food departments expressed they are committed to not only sustaining the changes they’ve already implemented, but also will strive to work toward implementing more of our recommendations for increasing scratch cooking. 

Ultimately, every step these districts have made, and will continue to make, toward improving their meal programs impact the health and wellbeing of the 16,000 students they serve. 

Learn more about Get Schools Cooking.

Get Schools Cooking is made possible thanks to generous support from our funders. Beacon Fund and Whole Kids sponsored the fourth cohort.

All figures are from Center for Nutrition and Health Impact.