How School Wellness Policies Connect Farm to School Programs Across Oregon Districts

This article is pulled from episode 1-14 of The Farm to School Podcast hosted by Michelle Markesteyn and Rick Sherman. For the full episode and transcript, click here.

School wellness policies might sound like bureaucratic paperwork, but they’re actually powerful tools for advancing farm to school and school garden programs. Jennifer Young, School Wellness Policy Coordinator at Oregon Department of Education, explains how these federal requirements create opportunities to integrate local food, nutrition education, and gardens into the fabric of school life.

The Origin of School Wellness Policies

School wellness policies were created in 2004 as part of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act. “They were originally created in a sense to combat rising levels of childhood obesity,” Young explains. The policies include requirements around school nutrition and physical activity and apply to any district that participates in National School Lunch and school breakfast programs.

The policies were “definitely strengthened in 2010 with the healthy hunger Free Kids Act,” which was the next reauthorization. This 2010 legislation gave wellness policies more structure and accountability, transforming them from what Young calls “shelf policies”—documents that exist but aren’t actively used—into actionable frameworks.

From Shelf Policy to Living Document

The reality of early wellness policy implementation was often underwhelming. As one former food service director recalls, many districts approached it as an “unfunded mandate” where the policy consisted of little more than a paragraph stating “We have a Wellness policy.”

“That was probably from 2006 when it went into effect until 2017, after the healthy hunger Free Kids Act was put into place. It really didn’t have teeth,” Young acknowledges. “With the final rule of the healthy hunger Free Kids Act, that’s what tied it to the nutrition program and it gave it some teeth.”

The challenge remains that “a lot of times people, teachers, others look at it like, you know, just somebody else telling them one more thing they should do.” However, Young reframes this perspective: “It’s really thinking about all the students in your school and thinking about inclusivity and equity.”

What Wellness Policies Cover

Wellness policies allow districts to set goals around nutrition promotion and education, physical activity, and other wellness activities like school employee wellness. They include federal requirements for nutrition standards for foods sold in schools and food marketing and promotion.

Districts also set their own standards for foods offered as rewards and classroom celebrations. “There’s kids that have type one diabetes that sometimes are left out because there’s a lot of candy and sugary foods given in schools,” Young notes. “So it’s really an opportunity to think about, OK, what will be best for all the students.”

Young shares a personal memory: “When I was in school…we had these little for celebrations. We would get these little ice cream cups with the wooden spoon…after one bite and biting that wooden spoon…most of us just wanted to go off and play and do the rest of the party.” The point: “Kids themselves really just want to have fun and food doesn’t need to be the big center of everything.”

Farm to School’s Connection to Wellness Policies

Oregon recognized this connection early. In 2008, when the Oregon Legislature enacted House Bill 3601 A establishing the state’s farm to school program, two of the five directives to the Department of Education related to wellness policies: provide information on how farm to school and school gardens may help implement USDA-mandated wellness policies, and assist districts in incorporating school garden projects into those policies.

Young emphasizes the natural fit: “Getting onto the Wellness Committee, they would welcome you. And then as a member of the committee, you’ll be able to see all these opportunities to link what you do with what they’re talking about.”

For example, “when they’re talking about school nutrition, many of the other members won’t be thinking about the local food component or how to integrate classroom teachers with the school nutritionist and talking about local food, but you’ll be there to make those connections.”

The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Framework

Young’s work uses the CDC’s Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) framework, which she describes with a memorable metaphor: “A lot of people tell me, oh, when you say WSCC, I think of like a whisk, like in the kitchen…that’s a perfect mental visual, because that’s exactly what it’s doing. It’s whisking all the pieces of school health up together and integrating them.”

The framework includes ten components where farm to school naturally fits:

School Nutrition Services and Environment is the obvious starting point—”bringing local food into the school, having…bringing farmers in for field trips.”

Health Education connects with academic content standards through farm to school lessons.

Community Involvement and Family Engagement happen through farm partnerships and garden volunteer opportunities.

Employee Wellness can include “getting your school staff out into the garden both to learn and to hear from the students, letting the students be their teachers about the garden.”

Physical Environment encompasses not just gardens but “outdoor classrooms and signage for the garden and garden art.”

Social Emotional Climate recognizes that “students who might struggle in the classroom, but you get them outside and connected to nature” can thrive.

“All these components in this model really fit so beautifully with farm to school and school garden efforts,” Young concludes.

How to Get Involved

For parents, educators, or farm to school advocates wanting to engage with wellness policies, Young recommends starting by finding the district’s wellness policy on their website. Then “contact probably the school secretary, whatever number there is for the school or the district and ask” about joining the wellness committee.

“Each district and school is supposed to have a Wellness lead,” though Young acknowledges that after the pandemic, Oregon is “doing an assessment of what districts and schools still do have Wellness leads and Wellness committees that are active.”

Why This Matters for Public Health

Young’s path to this work began personally. While working at Oregon’s Public Health Division, she heard a radio segment about Portland students amazed to find bones in their chicken drumsticks. Shortly after, her own children refused to eat eggs from their backyard chickens, saying “We’re not eating eggs from a chicken.”

“Even in my own home, my kids don’t realize the source of where their food is coming from,” she realized. “The whole concept of farm to school and school gardens…filled in that gap between working to make school food more appealing and accessible and connect students to where their food is really coming from.”

From a population health perspective, Young sees farm to school and school gardens as critical for addressing health disparities. “What concerns me…is when you look at the widening health disparities between students that have access to healthy food are able to shop in full service grocery stores and then students that go home to neighborhoods where they’re considered food deserts.”

Schools serve a crucial role “with the school meals and with providing farm to school and school garden programs for all students to have access to healthy food and to learn where their food comes from.” Most importantly, “exposure to fruits and vegetables and gardening…can really change a student’s trajectory in terms of creating new eating habits that will last a lifetime.”

Young’s work demonstrates that wellness policies aren’t just compliance documents—they’re frameworks for integrating health, equity, and connection to food systems throughout the school environment.

Listen to the full podcast episode to hear more about Jennifer’s journey from public health to education, specific strategies for integrating farm to school into wellness policies, and resources for getting started in your district.