Better Food Sets the Mood for the School Day
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Chef Ben Pflaumer chuckles as he recalls the time a student told him “Your job is so important. You decide how everybody’s day is going to go.”
Ben, who spent years running some of the best restaurants in Washington, DC, recently joined the team at PHILLIPS School ~ Annandale as part of our partnership with Brigaid, an organization of chefs dedicated to replacing traditional heat-and-serve school food with nutritious, delicious scratch-cooked meals. He says students have told him how much the food they’re served at school affects their mood during the day.
“They’re actually eating and they’re not sitting there hungry and miserable because they didn’t eat because they thought it was gross,” he says. “It’s food that they find comforting. It’s food that they get excited about.”
Excitement is a key ingredient in the recipe for reinventing our school cuisine. That means getting kids involved in the process.
SpringForward Feeds Food Service Manager Roshell Dews says the first step was to visit all the classrooms in Annandale to talk with students about the food from the previous vendor and ask what changes they wanted to see. Then, once the new menu was introduced a couple of months ago, students were asked to fill out a satisfaction survey every day for the first two weeks. She says the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and the number of students participating in the school meals program has increased about 15 percent.
“One thing I’ve noticed is students influence other students,” Roshell notes, adding that those who get involved in the food service program are especially persuasive among their peers. That includes Culinary Arts students who take classes in the kitchen, as well as those with in-school jobs such as packaging and delivering meals to classrooms, or washing dishes.
“They’re a lot more engaged in it because they’re a part of it,” says Ben. “They’re always excited to let you know how they feel about their breakfast or their lunch.”
The goal, he says, is to make new menu items “approachable.”
“We tried tofu. They didn’t like it. It wasn’t approachable,” Ben explains. “We want to make sure they’re eating. So we’re serving them cheeseburgers, we’re serving them pizza. We’re just making sure we’re doing it in the right way.”
That means using whole wheat flour to make the pizza crust, for example, or replacing chicken nuggets with roasted chicken topped with a flavorful sauce.
“Hearing a student tell me that the macaroni and cheese is just like their grandmother’s, that’s exactly where we want to be every day,” Ben says. “They want their second portion and third portion of it. They actually want to eat a healthy meal for lunch.”
Students to Lead Zero-Waste School Meals Project
Serving meals that will be gobbled up instead of thrown away is a common-sense response to the problem of food waste. It’s also part of a new initiative that will expand the impact of our meal service upgrade.
Thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Change X and AWS (Amazon Web Services) InCommunities Northern Virginia Sustainability Fund, our Annandale students will lead a project that showcases how a school community can be environmentally responsible and sustainable.
We will enhance the school garden by adding a raised bed where elementary school students will grow and harvest various kinds of herbs to be used in making school meals. They will also take part in taste-testing with Chef Ben to make more dishes that are tasty and healthy, further reducing food waste.
Student Council leaders will partner with SpringForward Feeds to begin testing reusable, washable containers to replace the wasteful disposable containers currently used for meals delivered to classrooms.
Students will collect food scraps from daily meal preparation, weigh the waste and place it into a compost bin near the school garden. The compost will be used to enrich the garden soil to grow more herbs and other plants, completing the cycle of sustainability.
This project will serve as a model to be replicated at other PHILLIPS campuses and other schools across Northern Virginia. Annandale Student Council leaders will create posters and videos to document the project and inspire others. They will implement a Zero Waste campaign around Earth Day in April.
Growing Futures
PHILLIPS Career Partners Program Director Lindsay Harris gave a presentation about our innovative Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways Construction Trades, Urban Agriculture, Culinary Arts, and 3D Digital Design & IT at this month’s National Policy Summit for the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) "Game Changers Impacting Society" in Arlington, Virginia.
Advice from a PHILLIPS Graduate
It’s always a pleasure to welcome former students back to campus and hear about how the lessons they learned here are helping them find success as working adults.
Ashley Graves, who graduated from PHILLIPS School ~ Annandale 10 years ago, is now pursuing her career dreams in Atlanta. When she came back to visit recently, we asked her to record some thoughts to share with current PHILLIPS students. In this excerpt, Ashley talks about the importance of the staff. “It’s OK to fall and know you have a team to help pick you up.”
Learn and Grow With Family Partners
PHILLIPS Family Partners provides Right Response training for parents and caregivers. This training presents proven techniques for preventing, addressing, and managing a child’s challenging behaviors. The next sessions, which are conducted online, will be on April 17 and 18 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm. The cost is $30 per individual registrant and $50 per couple registrant. Please use this link to register.
Family Partners is now also offering Outpatient Counseling services to children with developmental disabilities and/or behavioral health challenges and their families. Services will be provided virtually out of our Annandale offices. For details, contact FamilyPartners.Referrals@phillipsprograms.org.
PHILLIPS Programs for Children and Families
7010 Braddock Rd | Annandale, Virginia 22003
703-941-8810 | piper.phillips@phillipsprograms.org
PHILLIPS Programs for Children and Families is a private, non-profit organization serving the complex needs of children and youth living with cognitive, emotional and/or behavioral challenges in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. Through excellence in specialized education, community programs and individualized support services, we provide our children and families every advantage to ensure they develop to achieve their greatest individual success. Their potential is our commitment.