Posts tagged Boulder Valley
Boulder Valley school news briefs
Mar 1st
BVSD elementary and middle school students from throughout the district will compete again this year in Iron Chef style competitions to win money for their schools and a spot on the 2013-2014 school food menu.
Teams must create a dish that is not only delicious but also meets the USDA guidelines, is healthy, and stays at or under the $1.20/plate price allocation. We know from previous years that some great food will be presented to our judges!
This year, along with managers from BVSD Food Services, local food celebrities will also be joining to help judge, featuring guest judges from Whole Foods, The Kitchen’s Hugo Matheson, Bradford Heap of Salt, and Arugula’s Alec Schuler.
BVSD Elementary School Iron Chef Competition
4-6 p.m. Thursday, March 7
Arapahoe Ridge High School
(6600 Arapahoe Road, Boulder)
BVSD Middle School Iron Chef Competition
4-6 p.m. Thursday, March 14
Casey Middle School
(2410 13th St., Boulder)
Ryan Elementary School library receives prestigious recognition
Ryan Elementary library one of few to be honored in Colorado
BVSD’s Ryan Elementary School, located in Lafayette, has been selected as a Colorado Department of Education’s Highly Effective School Library Program School.
The prestigious Highly Effective Status is given to only a few schools in Colorado each year. It is awarded based on improving student achievement through quality instruction using Colorado’s Academic Standards and 21st Century Learner Skills. The CDE stated in a letter that Ryan Elementary School’s library program will be used as a model to other school libraries in the state.
Ryan Elementary, represented by Principal Tobey Bassoff and Teacher Librarian Erika Arias, will be honored during the Colorado State Board of Education meeting in either April or May, depending on legislative agendas on those days. On the day of recognition, the Board Chair and Commissioner Hammond will award Ryan Elementary with a banner and a certificate. The event will be open to CDE personnel, public and media.
Ryan Elementary will retain Highly Effective Status until 2015 contingent upon sustained library personnel.
Scholarship Funds Available for Multicultural Students
Boulder County, Colo – Boulder County Community Action Programs (CAP) has scholarship monies to award to low-income students. Scholarships range from $500-$1,000 each and are made possible through proceeds from CAP’s Annual Multicultural Awards Banquet.
Applicants must meet the following criteria:
- Minimum one year residency in Boulder County
- Currently attending university, community college or technical school as a full-time undergraduate or graduate student
- Low to moderate-income level.
Preference is given to students actively involved in a student organization or the community. This is not a scholarship for students who will be graduating from high school this spring/summer
This is a one-time scholarship; prior CAP multicultural scholarship recipients are not eligible to apply again.
Applications are available by visiting: www.BoulderCountyCAP.org .
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Application deadline is April 12, 2013. We encourage students of color to apply. E-mail applications and any questions to Sheila Goetz at: sgoetz@bouldercounty.org.
Healthy vending snacks on the rise
Feb 6th
Written by Ann Schimke on Feb 5th, 2013. | Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org
Jamie Marrufo, a senior at Greeley West High School, noticed right away that the vending machine in the student commons looked a little different when she got back from winter break.
One of the new vending machines offering healthier snacks in the Weld School District 6.
“I was like, ‘Where are the Snickers?’”
They were gone.
So were the rest of the candy bars as well as the fried potato and corn chips. In their place were baked chips, honey wheat pretzels, Chex Mix, beef jerky, granola bars, and pouches of trail mix, peanuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. The change was part of a district-wide vending machine makeover intended to offer snacks lower in fat, sugar and calories.
Although Marrufo, who buys snacks from the machine about twice a week, loves Snickers bars, she likes the new vending machine choices too.
“It’s healthy food,” she said. “I think it’s good.”
Her friend Aimee Veenendaal, a junior who doesn’t like candy, also approved of the changes.
“I actually like it because that’s basically what I eat…the healthier stuff.”
Weld County School District 6 launched the new snack vending program in early January with the help of a $157,329 grant from the Colorado Health Foundation. The grant paid for the district’s 16 food vending machines, a vending truck, the salary of a district vending employee for one year and marketing materials to promote the new program.
Jenna Schiffelbein, the district’s wellness specialist, said the impetus for the switch was feedback from a district-wide wellness assessment in 2011-12. With the exception of some nut products, the new vending snacks, which are accessible to students only at the district’s four high schools, all adhere to the district’s standards on fat and sugar content. In addition, each snack is coded with a red, yellow or green sticker indicating that, nutritionally speaking, it is “good,” “better,” or “best.”
The district has not changed the contents of its beverage vending machines as part of the new program, though Schiffelbein said that may come later. Currently, beverage machines in all Colorado districts are regulated by the state’s Healthy Beverages Policy standards, which prohibit soda from being sold to students.
Do your homework
- Colorado’s Healthy Beverage Policy standards
- Colorado law banning trans fat from school food, effective 9/1/13
- Resources for healthy vending programs from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation
- Colorado Legacy Foundation: School Nutrition Data Snapshot
- Colorado laws on “School Food Environment” from the National Association of State Boards of Education’s“State School Healthy Policy Database”
- Centers for Disease Control report: “Competitive Foods and Beverages in U.S. Schools: A State Policy Analysis”
Healthy vending programs increasing
Weld District 6 is part of a growing group of Colorado districts that have slimmed down their vending machine snacks in recent years. While there is no hard data on the number of districts that have launched healthy vending programs, school nutrition leaders agree that more and more districts are heading in this direction.
Denver Public Schools and Jeffco Public Schools launched healthy vending programs several years ago, Boulder Valley joined the club last year, and Adams 12 is currently in the process of making the switch.
Jane Brand, director of the Colorado Department of Education’s Office of School Nutrition, said a variety of factors have driven the change, including the USDA’s updated nutrition standards for school meals, which took effect last fall, and its new, long-awaited “Smart Snacks in Schools” proposal, which came out Feb. 1.
Greater awareness about health and wellness in schools and high-profile initiatives such as Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign have also contributed to the push for healthier vending snacks, she said.
Naomi Steenson, director of Nutrition Services and Before and After School Enrichment in Adams 12, said, “It’s the right thing to do for the kids.”
The Jeffco experience
In Jeffco Public Schools, the largest district in the state, the vending program was revamped with healthier food in 2007-08 after a state audit found the district in violation of the federally-mandated “Competitive Foods” rule barring vending items from being sold when school meals are served. Linda Stoll, executive director of Food and Nutrition Services, said the district’s vending machines were supposed to be on timers that would disable them at the appropriate times, but because they lacked the technology the machines were always on.
As a result of the violation, the district launched a new vending bid process, specifying nutrition guidelines from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an organization focused on reducing childhood obesity. The guidelines use a common rule called the “35-10-35” standard, which stipulates that no more than 35 percent of a snack’s total calories can be from fat, no more than 10 percent can be from saturated and trans fat, and no more than 35 percent of a snack’s weight can be from sugar. Boulder Valley also uses these guidelines while Weld 6 uses a slightly stricter “30-10-35” standard.
In addition to a version of the 35-10-35 standard, some districts opt for additional parameters. For example, Boulder Valley also bans vending fare with non-nutritive sweeteners, hydrogenated or trans fat, artificial dyes, additives or preservatives. Jeffco prohibits high fructose corn syrup.
Not all snacks that met the letter of Jeffco’s standards were approved by Stoll. She vetoed MoonPies because she believed they were unhealthy though somehow they met the guidelines.
Stoll said she hopes the changes, which affected students in 17 high schools, have encouraged students to make healthier food choices.
“I’m sure kids miss Flamin’ Hot Cheetos but I haven’t heard a lot of complaints,” she said.
Impact on sales
While many food service directors expect some decline in sales after switching to healthier vending fare, it’s hard to quantify since individual schools often manage the day-to-day details of vending machines.
A vending machine containing healthier snacks at Greeley West High School.
At Fairview High School in Boulder, sales have dropped about 44 percent since new healthier vending snacks were introduced last winter. Still, school treasurer Ronda Pendergrass said the decrease may have nothing to do with a lack of interest in healthier choices. Instead, she believes it’s because the old machines weren’t properly programmed to be disabled during the school’s lunch periods until a few months into the 2011-12 school year. Thus, they racked up more sales than they should have.
Vending proceeds at Fairview benefit the athletics program, paying for sports equipment, signing parties for college-bound student athletes and some scholarships, said Pendergrass.
In Weld District 6, Nutrition Services Director Jeremy West said with the new vending selection in place, “Sales may dip a little bit. We do not have candy bars in there. We do not have gummy worms in there.”
Ultimately, West’s goal is for the new vending program is to break even, fully supporting itself after the grant funding is gone. Under the new program, 15 percent of vending sales will return to the schools that house the machines and 85 percent will go to the nutrition services department.
Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for Boulder Valley School District (and an expert on EdNews Parent), said she’s not concerned about whether sales have dropped since the district switched to healthier vending items last winter.
“Our job is to serve kids full, healthy lunches…how much money we bring in in vending is not the priority.”
Boulder County: Teens and adults can apply for summer jobs with Youth Corps
Jan 28th
Boulder County, Colo. – Boulder County residents ages 14-17 can now apply for summer jobs with the Boulder County Youth Corps. Boulder County is also hiring adults to be team leaders. Boulder County is especially in need of female Corps members and leaders.
The deadline to submit youth applications is Friday, March 29. Other positions are open until filled.
The Youth Corps will hire between 160-180 teenagers to work 30 hours per week, Monday through Thursday, from June 10 to July 31 on a variety of community service projects. Team leaders will be employed from May 29 to August 2 to work up to 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday. Projects will include such activities as forest thinning, historic preservation, construction and repair of fencing, trail maintenance, removal of Russian olive trees and noxious weeds, landscaping and replacing light bulbs with compact fluorescents. Youth Corps teams will work in unincorporated Boulder County as well as in cities and towns within Boulder County.
Applicants can apply online at www.bouldercounty.org/youthcorps. Applications can also be picked up at counseling offices in Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley schools; city and town personnel offices; most local recreation and youth centers and libraries; and the Boulder County Human Resources Department, 2025 14th St. (Boulder).
This year, Corps members will earn a starting wage of $7.78/hour, with the possibility of earning a $100 bonus at the end of the program based on merit and strong attendance. Teens who have worked for the Corps in past years can earn up to $8.28/hour. In addition, Corps members are eligible for reimbursement for the purchase of work boots and gloves. RTD bus passes for the purpose of traveling to and from centralized work meeting places may be subsidized.
Team Leaders must be high school graduates at least 21 years old with two years of college coursework or more, and Assistant Team Leaders must be high school graduates at least 18 years old, among other qualifications. A list of full qualifications is available online at www.bouldercounty.org/youthcorps. Team Leaders start at $13.50/hour and Assistant Team Leaders at $11.50/hour.
The Youth Corps offers one of the best first job opportunities available in Boulder County. Teams have completed projects such as constructing almost a mile of trail at Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat, replacing the residential fence at a Boulder County low-income housing development in Louisville, and preserving the McDonald Cabin at Betasso Preserve Open Space.
For more information, visit www.bouldercounty.org/youthcorps or call the Youth Corps office at 303-678-6104.
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