NIS BLOG: Giving Thanks

The nutrition initiative has a new focus

'Nutrition in the Schools' Initiative Gaining Momentum, Challenges Ahead

The healthy foods initiative began in Upper Dublin, but has since grown.

Five years ago, Jill Florin looked at the Upper Dublin School District lunch menu and saw funnel cake as an option.   “I had to look twice because I could not believe that this would be offered for a lunch,” she said.   This inspired Florin to start Nutrition in the Schools. “Nutrition in the Schools is an endeavor with the mission to help find ways for schools to only offer foods which are freshly prepared on site for school meals and limit the amount of minimally nutritional food items that are available during a school day,” said Florin. Florin had big plans for the initiative, and she planned to grow the movement in Upper Dublin before expanding it to other districts. The 2010-11 school year was a "break-out" year for the organization…

•  5 Comments
• Photos (2)

Dr Steven Greene

1:53 pm on Friday, June 24, 2011

there is an aspect of choice and and aspect of what is available and an aspect of education. Most children would likely prefer 'bad' foods to good ones for better or worse. If they had to pick between and apple and candy bar which do you think most would take? So isn't part of the solution not having these 'bad' choices available at the schools / cafeteria. But these choices are also based on …   more ›

Preliminary budget, 5.85 percent maximum tax increase, approved at UDSD board meeting

Board members say the number is not final, and may decrease. Also, a new in-district kindergarten program was approved, and residents voiced displeasure with food services.

On Monday, Feb. 14, the Upper Dublin school board adopted a preliminary 2011-12 budget by a unanimous vote. The preliminary budget includes a 5.85 percent tax increase to Upper Dublin residents. However, this figure is a flexible one, and board members were quick to point out that 5.85 percent more accurately represents a limit than a final number. "What that means is that we could pass a budget only up to that number, that sets our ceiling going forward," said board president Michael Paston. "You can always go down, you can't go up." And decrease it may, as the board will be working on other budget models that could include a lower tax increase, as board member Art Levinowitz suggested. The increase, as it stands, is broken down to 1.4 …

• Photos (2)
• Documents (4)