Our friends at the NEA have shared a wealth of information about the Child Nutrition Bill that is working its way through Congress. This is a good time to contact your congressional representatives to advocate for the bill. Following is the latest (July 8) from the NEA:
The Child Nutrition bill is legislation directly affecting millions of students and thousands of food service workers in the public schools. These are the folks providing healthy meals to students so they can focus and learn better in the classroom. Our support for a good bill that continues to provide resources workers need to do their job is critical to students achieving in their lessons successfully.
The story to date: The Senate passed its version of this bill out of the Agriculture Committee in March. Our letter on the Senate bill can be found here… http://www.nea.org/home/38662.htm . The NEA fact sheet is here.
Chairman Miller, D-CA, introduced the House bill, HR 5504 in June and there was a hearing held in the House Education and Labor Committee last week. The Education Committee members received the cover letter below and information sheets from NEA Education Support Professional Quality and NEA Health Information Network. For more information including a recording of the hearing, go to: http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/2010/07/hr5504-improving-nutrition-for.shtml.
Coming up very quickly: Chairman Miller intends to mark-up the bill the week of July 12th. NEA GR is sending information to the committee in advance of the mark-up, reiterating NEA’s support for a robust bill, with adequate funding, nutritional standards, and professional development and protections for our ESP members.
To continue recent momentum, NEA is partnering with the Child Nutrition Forum, Food Policy Working Group and others to demonstrate broad support for completing a strong, robustly-funded child nutrition bill this year. Details to come.
Cover Letter
Food Services ESP brochure
Closing the Nutrition Gap article
Focus group summary