Program Checklist: School Programs
12 Steps for Coordinating Your School Program:
1. See full responsibilities of the Program Coordinator position under position descriptions.
2. Work with your school contacts to determine and document what types of programs Nurture will conduct. These should be tailored based on school resources, Nurture budget, and Nurture volunteer availability.
3. Determine how frequently each part of the program will be conducted and how much time will be allocated for it. For example, an information campaign could include a monthly article for the school newsletter, in-class nutrition lessons could be conducted for pre-determined period (e.g. 15-30 minutes per month), and additional activities such as after school programming or parent education programming requires additional time and planning. If you are considering recipe creation, think about what type of cooking space will you have and how that will influence recipe selection.
4. Review Nurture materials with an eye for what the school wants the students to learn through the program. Click here for an overview of lesson learning goals.
5. Create a curriculum overview – a chart which summarizes each aspect of the program Nurture will conduct. The Curriculum Overview should be created with a sense for how much time allocated for each class/touch point. Work with the school contacts to ensure that the Curriculum Overview is set up in a way so that each lesson reinforces prior lessons. Reinforcement methods include behavior logs, discussions of at- home activities, prior lesson Q&A time, and following lessons with supporting activities.
6. Work with Nurture’s Program Evaluation Committee and the school to decide how you will evaluate the program, student learning, and behavior change. Determine how and when the assessment tools will be administered.
7. Schedule program dates and Contact us with dates and times so they can be posted on the Nurture website.
8. Staff your program with volunteers. Click here for an example volunteer chart. Coordinate with volunteer coordination committee on this task.
Meet with your Nurture teachers. Provide tips for working with kids and food (Keeping it Clean, Reading a Recipe and Safety Tips), Tips for Working with Children, and information about cognitive development. Review how you will communicate with them, their teaching responsibilities, school sign-in procedures, where to find lesson materials, what evaluation forms to distribute, what communication they should provide you after teaching, etc.
10. Meet with the school staff/teachers with whom Nurture will interact. Overview how the program will work and what assistance we need from them. Introduce the Nurture teachers. If you will not be one of the Nurture teachers, plan on observing and coordinating the first few lessons. Also be sure to read the feedback from the school and Nurture teachers. These will provide invaluable information on how to tweak the program to better meet the needs of your school. Capture this learning and provide succinct recommendations.
11. At least 2 weeks prior to each lesson:
-distribute all lesson materials and supplies to Nurture teachers and your school contacts. When helpful, include tips on how to use these in your school environment.
-distribute a schedule of who will be teaching what days and times.
-ensure all visual aids, handouts, student rewards, and teacher evaluations are created and ready for use. If the school is producing these, clarify what you need from them.
-schedule the purchase of any food required for the recipes (Contact Us for information about direct Peapod service)
-obtain any required cooking equipment. Contact your Regional Director for more information.
-ensure that each volunteer has signed a liability waiver. Coordinate with Nurture site liaison/volunteer coordinator on this task
-if preparing and sampling recipes, make sure each participant has signed a liability waiver
12. Have fun teaching/coordinating your program! At the conclusion of the program administer the end of program assessments. Coordinate with the Program Evaluation Committee for this task. Click here for more information about program evaluation.
