On March 31, 2016, Tennessee Governor, Bill Haslam, signed a new bill which increases the weekly requirements for physical activity in grades K-6. The new law will go into effect in July 2016 requiring 225 minutes of physical activity per week for Tennessee (5% Latino) students in grades K-1, and 160 minutes per week for students in grades 2-6. This is a drastic increase from the previous requirement of 90 minutes per week for all grades, although students in grades 7-12 will still only receive 90 minutes. More specifically, the law requires a minimum of three 15-minutes periods of non-structured physical activity at least four days a week for grades K-1, and a minimum of two 20-minutes periods of non-structured physical activity at least four days a week for grades 2-6. Many ...
In Las Cruces, NM city council members will meet today, May 23, 2016, to discuss plans for expanding the local agriculture and food environment, through a comprehensive Urban Agriculture and Food Policy plan, developed by local non-profit La Semilla Food Center. Exactly what is urban agriculture (UA)? The idea is to inform leaders about the many forms, benefits and opportunities that UA has to offer the local community. UA is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in and around towns and cities. Through UA communities are no longer held to the idea that local growing is just for farmers or rural communities, but in reality schools, churches, local businesses, housing authorities, residents and virtually anyone with a desire to grow and produce their ...
On May, 20, 2016, after 35 years of negotiations, the National Park Service the San Antonio Food Bank finalized a land use agreement allowing the Food Bank and its volunteers to grow crops on 45 acres of farmland at Mission San Juan Capistrano. Five acres of land will be used used for demonstrations of the 1730's Spanish colonial acequia system-an acequia is a type of ditch used to irrigate crops-and forty acres will be farmed and managed by the Food Bank. "In the 1700s, the fields were maintained by indigenous mission inhabitants and irrigated with acequias, carefully engineered irrigation ditches that were hand-dug to carry water from the San Antonio River to the farmland," Park superintendent Mardi Arce said, according to one source. Los Compadres, the official nonprofit ...
Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Sylvia M. Burwell, announced over $260 million in funding awarded to 290 health centers in 45 states across the country. The funds will be used for renovation, construction, or expansion. “Health centers are cornerstones of the communities they serve,” said Secretary Burwell. “[These] awards will empower health centers to build more capacity and provide needed health care to hundreds of thousands of additional individuals and their families.” The goal is for health centers to utilize these funds to increase their patient capacity and provide additional comprehensive primary and preventive health services “to medically underserved populations.” The new and/or renovated centers are expected to ...
What's a good way to make sure students eat the new healthy foods schools are trying to implement across the nation? Taste Tests! A school district in South Carolina, Laurens 56 school district, has worked with kids, offering taste tests to try the new healthy school food swaps, before putting them on the school menu. Now new favorites in the lunchroom include collards and broccoli! All items are taste-tested, and given feedback from kids before approved, to make sure students enjoy new items like the chicken fajita wraps. Cindy Jacobs, the Child Nutrition Director for the district, worked from the very beginning making sure teachers and students saw the importance of the new nutrition standards, and asked students to get creative by making their own lunch menus under the ...
In 2013, Bill de Blasio campaigned for the office of mayor of New York City (29% Latino population) on the promise of universal pre-K. A little over three years later and the city enrolls more children in full-day pre-K than any other state besides Georgia. The preschool enrollment of New York City exceeds the total number of students in San Francisco or Boston. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” said deputy mayor Richard Buery, who oversaw the pre-K expansion, in an interview to The New York Times. “Every aspect has been a challenge.” Two thousand teachers had to be recruited, 3,000 classrooms had to be opened, and 300 community providers had to be vetted as partners. More work still had to be done to ensure that the program was a success. The city ...
According to recent local news, kids in Arizona schools that have school garden produce will now get to crunch into their fresh-cut carrots. Existing law required that the Department of Health Services adopt regulations to ensure all food and or drink being sold at retail and provided for consumption be free from dirt, or disease- causing organisms. The new law just passed this month that would exempt fruits and vegetables grown in school gardens to be able to be washed and eaten on-site for immediate consumption. There were opposals of the bill, stating that kids could be at health risks, however, physician and House Minority Leader Eric Meyer said in the recent article that he has never known of any cases when kids would get sick from eating fresh fruits and ...
Christine Davis, a parent in Madison Elementary School District in Arizona, began looking into the school districts policies regarding time for recess and daily exercise in 2015. She made phone calls and sent emails to school administrators to gather information. She found that from the state level down, the policies were vague and the ones that were in place were mostly focused on P.E. This concerned her because she's knows an active body is an active mind, so she requested the district adopt more strict policies regarding recess to ensure kids get time to exercise everyday. Some Madison School District Government Board members agreed to discuss creating more specific guidelines for a recess policy. Davis and other parents also started the Madison Parents for Recess group ...
After nearly two years in development, the city of Philadelphia (13% Latino population) established a language access program that will make it easier for non-native speakers to utilize public information and services. The program, entitled Language Access Philly, will establish a “framework for city agencies to follow in order to comply with the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter.” “Philadelphia is one of the most diverse cities in the country,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. “As residents, workers or visitors who contribute to city life, people with limited English proficiency are entitled to fair and equal access to service. This executive order will continue to move the city in the right direction of providing meaningful services to citizens across the ...
