Josh Perkins wants Madison’s school food to be a credit to the city.

“This is a city that prioritizes food highly… and I think the food in the district ought to represent that, reflect that in very equal measure,” said Perkins, the district’s food and nutrition director. “That’s what I intend to do with transforming the program, but that’s a big change from where we are now.

“It’s not going to happen in one year, probably not going to happen in two years.”

A few steps toward that goal are underway, as the Madison Metropolitan School District works internally and with partners on three research projects around its school food and nutrition program.

“Not all districts are really as open to collaborating with researchers or as eager to bring in that kind of external expertise to help them address problems,” said Jennifer Gaddis, a University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor and expert in school food, who is involved in two of the projects.

One of those projects is being led by MMSD’s Research, Assessment & Improvement Department to evaluate why elementary school students do or do not eat school meals, and how the meals could be improved. That follows similar research last school year focused at the high school level.

“Bringing in the experts in the field that are literally down the street from us is really smart,” said MMSD Innovation and Improvement Supervisor Leigh Vierstra. “And then going and talking to our students, our families, doing observations in our schools.”

The other project is led by Gaddis and a partner at UW-Madison, titled “Feelings About Food.” The researchers hope to better understand the emotions around school food and the choice to participate or not.

Finally, Sustain Dane is in its third school year working with the district on decreasing food waste through grants from the World Wildlife Fund. In early 2024, they’ll take another step with “community sharing tables” at some schools to help turn what could be food waste into something useful.

Perkins said partnerships will be key to any significant changes, given the expertise and networks others can bring to the table.

“They have connections into the community and they have bandwidth and specific ways of approaching things from their respective disciplines that just amount to a far greater ability to connect with the community than I could ever hope to achieve on my own,” Perkins said. “That’s the primary reason.

“In order to transform the program in beneficial ways, I need all the information I can get.”

Elementary school food

The project on elementary school food has a similar goal to a study that produced a three-page report last summer.

That report outlined student feedback on lunches, an idea to increase participation in the food program and the results of a small-scale test of new menu items at East High School.

“What we’re really focused on is the same thing as the high schools; figuring out what can we do to increase satisfaction in the program and participation?” Gaddis said.

The idea then, and with the ongoing elementary school study now, is to hear from the potential customers themselves.

“If you’re going to design a program that you want people to engage in, you’ve got to hear what they want and need and desire,” Vierstra said. “It’s pretty simple in terms of that vantage point.”

Who exactly those customers are is slightly different between the two levels of schools.

At the high schools, students are often making their own decisions about bringing food from home, eating school food or going off-campus for lunch. For elementary schoolers, parents are much more involved, which expands the groups of people Gaddis, her graduate students participating in the project and MMSD’s researchers must talk with to get a full picture.

Once they’ve established the feedback, implementing major changes could still be a challenge at the elementary schools, which are more varied in their layouts, cooking resources and staffing levels.

“If we’re developing a dish for elementary schools, we’re probably going to be putting the main development back in our central kitchen to come up with an exciting entree that can be produced, packaged and sent out to be served in the elementaries,” Perkins said. “In the secondary kitchens, we have a little bit more free rein to think about cooking on site in those kitchens.”

Feelings About Food

Feelings About Food is “really the first study of its kind and I think that it’s something that is addressing an issue that certainly is prevalent outside of Madison,” Gaddis said.

She had noticed that even in districts or states with universal free meals, participation rates weren’t always rising.

“That got me wondering about why, even when meals are getting better, people are still opting out of the program when the program is free?” she said.

She and Maggie Kerr, assistant professor of human development and family studies, have recruited more than 100 families to participate. They’ll send them a survey to set a baseline on questions about experiences with school meals, parent perspectives on decision-making and measuring pieces like parenting styles.

“What we’re really trying to do with this study is to really understand the kinds of not only fears, but also aspirations that people have when they think about feeding their children, and how that feeds into decision-making around whether families will participate or not in school breakfast and lunch,” Gaddis said. “We’re really trying to get a sense of all the different motivational factors, specifically more emotional factors that do influence people’s decision to have their children participate in a school meal program or not.”

After the baseline survey, a group of about 60 people will participate in a 28-day “ecological momentary assessment,” a research technique that Gaddis credited to Kerr. Those participants will be sent a daily message asking them to respond with “real-time information” about their decisions on meals that day and how feelings or emotions played a role.

An example, Gaddis said, is if a student was excited about one of the two options on the school food menu for that day, but by the time they got to the front of the line, that was out, leaving them with something they did not want or expect to eat. A parent who hears about that from their child later might respond by questioning the program.

“Then it’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I can trust the program, maybe I need to pack a lunch,’” she said. “There’s so many different kinds of concerns that parents and caregivers might have.”

Gaddis said they hope the research can help schools understand what communication methods or changes to programs could address concerns some families have.

She also hopes they can expand the research to other districts around the country, with Madison serving as a pilot.

Food waste

Sustain Dane first received a grant from the World Wildlife Fund to audit school food waste in 2021.

In the years since, the organization has been in some Madison elementary schools educating students about food waste and helping WWF gather data from districts around the country as part of the Food Waste Warriors program.

This year, they’re working in Lincoln and Midvale elementary schools, with a third school to be added soon.

Maggie Radl, Sustain Dane communications specialist, explained that she, several interns and a researcher from WWF will go to a cafeteria and share with students about the study a few times during the year. At the end of the lunch period, students will come to them and help sort food into different categories, which the research team will weigh to determine how much of different kinds of food waste there was.

Radl said she’s observed that there’s “a pretty strong correlation” with more school lunches being taken and an increase in food waste. But small changes, like offering a milk carton to every student who gets a lunch but not automatically serving them one, reduced milk waste by over 50%, she said.

In early 2024, the organization is adding “share tables” to their work with MMSD.

The idea with those tables, Sustain Dane Executive Director Claire Oleksiak explained, is about “how do we make sure that food that’s not going to be used is going to other kids that are hungry?” For example, an uneaten apple or snack can be put in a place where other kids can take them.

“Because there are families and kids in our community that are food insecure and using the food that is available in schools to help those kids get more food is really important,” she said.

The specific implementation and design will look different depending on the school, she said, including when such a table would be accessible for students and potential refrigerated components. Collaboration with staff at schools is a key to success, Oleksiak added, pointing to previous work on lunchroom recycling that involved custodial staff.

“It’s really important to us to think about all of the people that are involved in making this possible for kids and for schools,” she said.

Oleksiak said partnering with schools is an opportunity to help students understand how they can be part of long-term solutions on sustainability.

“This planet is the planet they’re going to inherit,” Oleksiak said. “Supporting kids and helping them both have environmental education but also see themselves as actors in making positive change is really important and really aligns with our goals as an organization and with these funders, as well.”