The Education Committee is tasked with looking at how local schools can improve their ability to influence healthy lifestyles and good nutrition both during the school day and after students have returned home. This committee has decided to target and partner with six schools for this project; DePaul Catholic and Cristo Rey because of their connection to La Salle University, as well as Logan and Pastorius Elementary Schools, Wagner Middle School, and Martin Luther King High School. A meeting has been set with an employee of the Philadelphia School District that oversees nutrition for the district. Following this meeting members of the Education Committee will reach out to administrators at the above schools, explain the broader purpose of the NHNP, and work with each schools Nutrition Commission (established as mandated by Pennsylvania law) to determine how each school is already working to influence healthy eating habits in their student populations. After this research is completed, the Education Committee will meet to discuss next steps.

This committee will also employ an intern – a local high school student who has volunteered her time and talents to this project as her senior service project – that will spend several hours in the above schools over a six-week period of time in April-May of 2013 doing firsthand research on how well the schools’ official policies are working in practice by speaking with students and teachers. Combined with the above findings, this research will provide a very clear picture of how nutrition and wellness is being treated in our community’s schools.