kramer kcffi final 052909

8/14/2019 Kramer Kcffi FINAL 052909

1/133


2/133

University of WashingtonDepartment of Urban Design and Planning

This is to certify that I have examined this copy of a professional project by

Donald Jerome Kramer

and have found that it is complete and satisfactory in all respects,and that any and all revisions required by the final

examining committee have been made.

Committee Members:

__________________________________________________Branden Born Ph.D.

__________________________________________________Joaquin Herranz Jr., Ph.D.

___________________________________________________Erin MacDougall Ph.D.

Date:___________________________


3/133

In presenting this professional project in partial fulfillment of the requirements for amasters degree at the University of Washington, I agree that the Library shall make itscopies freely available for inspection. I further agree that extensive copying of thisprofessional project is allowable only for scholarly purposes, consistent with fair use asprescribed in the U.S. Copyright Law. Any other reproduction for any purposes or by any

means shall not be allowed without my written permission.

Signature ____________________________________________

Date ________________________________________________


4/133

If you have questions or comments about this paper, please contact Don Kramer at

[email protected].

For more information about the King County Food and Fitness Initiative, visit

www.kcffi.org.


5/133

University of Washington

ABSTRACT

ASSESSING THE FOOD AND FITNESS ENVIRONMENTS OF

NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS IN DELRIDGE AND WHITE CENTER

By Donald Jerome Kramer, 2009, 85 pages.

Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Branden Born Ph.D., Assistant Professor of UrbanDesign and Planning.

The King County Food and Fitness Initiative (KCFFI) is a collaborative of local and

regional organizations and public agencies in King County, Washington, organized to

implement the Food and Fitness Initiative, a multi-year grant from the W.K. Kellogg

Foundation. The Initiative is intended to generate systems-level changes that improve the

food and fitness environments of entire communities. The focus communities of the

KCFFI are Delridge and White Center, adjacent neighborhoods in southwest Seattle and

in unincorporated King County, respectively.

The KCFFI received a two-and-a-half year planning grant from the Kellogg Foundation

in 2006 and must submit a Community Action Plan to the Foundation in September 2009that outlines how the KCFFI will use the five-year implementation grant. During summer

2008, the author was one of six students from the University of Washington who

participated in a ten-week applied urban planning course in collaboration with the

KCFFI. The final product of the course was a neighborhood-level community food

system assessment and built environment assessment. The course did not focus

specifically on schools.

One purpose of this professional project is to present a survey methodology and survey

tool the KCFFI can use to gather baseline information about food and fitness in schools.

For the purposes of this paper, the food environment includes foods available to students

in schools and nutrition education. Fitness environments include physical education and


6/133

physical activity in school and active transportation to and from school. This paper

includes the authors methodology and a copy of the survey. Another purpose of this

project is to give the KCFFI a compendium of relevant policies and programs that federal

and state governments and school districts develop, fund and/or regulate that affect food

and fitness at schools. This information provides context about the larger policy

environment within which schools operate.

Based on the authors research and analysis of these policies and programs, several

potential opportunities may exist for the KCFFI to influence food and fitness in schools

through collaboration with schools or through advocacy for policy changes. This paper

does not, however, make specific recommendations for action. KCFFI leadership will

decide how to plan and implement the initiative. Understanding where these policies and

programs originate, knowing about existing programs at schools in the focus

communities that could be replicated or serve as a resource, and collecting the survey

results can help the KCFFI leaders as they decide what to include in the Community

Action Plan.


7/133

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ iv

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ vi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................. 1

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 4

KCFFI Background ...................................................................................................................... 4

The KCFFI Focus Communities .................................................................................................. 6

Public Agency Health Data and Indicators About the Focus Communities .............................. 11

Schools in the Focus Communities ............................................................................................ 11

Purpose ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Audience .................................................................................................................................... 18

Professional Planning Context ................................................................................................... 19

How To Use This Document ..................................................................................................... 21

METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................ 22

Developing the Survey ............................................................................................................... 22

Testing the Survey ..................................................................................................................... 25Training Others to Conduct Survey ........................................................................................... 25

Collecting Survey Results .......................................................................................................... 26

Policy and Program Research Methodology .............................................................................. 28

UW Human Subjects Division Approval of Protocol ................................................................ 29

DISCUSSION OF SURVEY AND POLICY RESEARCH PROCESS ........................................ 30

Reflections on Methodology ...................................................................................................... 30

Initial Observations .................................................................................................................... 35

Survey Questions and Related Policy and Program Sources ..................................................... 37

POLICIES AND PROGRAMS THAT AFFECT SCHOOLS ....................................................... 39

School District Wellness Policies .............................................................................................. 40

Foods Available in Schools ....................................................................................................... 43


8/133

ii

Federal School Food Programs............................................................................................. 45

National School Lunch, School Breakfast and Afterschool Snacks Programs ...................... 46

Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program...................................................................................... 48

Summer Food Service Program ............................................................................................. 50

Competitive Foods ................................................................................................................. 51

Pricing ................................................................................................................................... 53

Drinking Water...................................................................................................................... 54

Food Environment Near Schools ............................................................................................... 55

Nutrition Education .................................................................................................................... 56

School Gardens ...................................................................................................................... 58

Physical Education ..................................................................................................................... 60Recess ........................................................................................................................................ 62

Community Access to School Recreation Facilities .................................................................. 64

Active Transportation ................................................................................................................ 65

Safe Routes to School Program ............................................................................................. 67

Safe Walking Route Maps for Focus Community Schools ..................................................... 71

Summary of Potential Opportunities for KCFFI ........................................................................ 75

CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 81

Lessons Learned......................................................................................................................... 81

Potential Opportunities .............................................................................................................. 84

REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 87

APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................... 93

KCFFI Collaborative Partners, as of May 12, 2008 .................................................................. 94

KCFFI Leadership Council Members, as of May 11, 2008 ....................................................... 95

KCFFI Assessment Team Members, Affiliation and Focus, as of January 2009 ...................... 96

KCFFI School Survey Interviewer Instructions ......................................................................... 97

KCFFI School Survey ................................................................................................................ 99

Oral Consent Statement for Interviewees ................................................................................ 108

School District Contact Information ........................................................................................ 109

State and Other Agency Contact Information .......................................................................... 110


9/133

iii

Safe Routes to School/Active Transportation Resources......................................................... 111

Highline Public Schools nutrition standards ............................................................................ 112

Seattle Public Schools distribution and sales of competitive foods procedure ........................ 114

Seattle Public Schools nutrition education procedure .............................................................. 118


10/133

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1. Map of KCFFI focus communities. ................................................................................ 10

Figure 2. Map of schools in KCFFI focus communities. ............................................................... 14

Figure 3. Detail of survey results collection file ............................................................................ 27

Figure 4. Safe walking route map, Roxhill Elementary School. .................................................... 74

Figure 5. Safe walking route map, Mount View Elementary School. ........................................... 75


11/133

v

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1. Public schools in KCFFI focus communities. .................................................................. 12

Table 2. Student demographics. ..................................................................................................... 15

Table 3. Student demographics: ethnicity. ..................................................................................... 16

Table 4. Student demographics: special programs. ........................................................................ 17

Table 6. Survey questions and related policy and program sources. ............................................. 37

Table 7. Activities to encourage biking and walking at three focus community schools. ............. 69


12/133

vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Prepared for:King County Food & Fitness Initiative.

Special thanks to:

Branden Born Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Planning, College ofBuilt Environments, University of Washington.

Joaquin Herranz, Jr. Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Evans School ofPublic Affairs, University of Washington.

Erin MacDougall Ph.D., Healthy Eating and Active Living Program Manager, KCFFIProject Director, Public Health Seattle King County.

Thanks also to staff from Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association, WhiteCenter Community Development Association, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center,Highline Public Schools, and Seattle Public Schools who helped with this project.


13/133

1EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This professional project paper presents my policy research and the school survey Ideveloped for the King County Food and Fitness Initiative (KCFFI) in winter and spring

2009. The KCFFI is a collaborative of community organizations, citywide and regional

organizations and public agencies organized for the purpose of implementing the Food

and Fitness Initiative, a multi-year grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Food

and Fitness Initiative is intended to generate systems-level changes that improve the food

and fitness environments of entire communities.

The KCFFI focus communities are Delridge and White Center, two adjacent

neighborhoods. Delridge is in southwest Seattle and White Center is in unincorporated

King County. The KCFFI Co-conveners used a Request for Qualifications process to

select these two neighborhoods based on three criteria: a history of food and fitness

efforts, a history of collaboration and evidence of community outreach experience.

The KCFFI received a two-and-a-half year planning grant from the Kellogg Foundation

in 2006 and must submit a Community Action Plan to the Foundation in September 2009

that outlines how the KCFFI will use the five-year implementation grant. During summer

2008, I was one of six students from the University of Washington (UW) Department of

Urban Design and Planning (UDP) who participated in a ten-week applied urban

planning studio course in collaboration with the KCFFI. The final product of the studio

was a document titled Food For Thought: Groundwork for the King County Food and

Fitness Initiative, which included our neighborhood-level community food system

assessment and built environment assessment for the KCFFI (University of Washington

2008). Our assessments did not focus specifically on the food and fitness environments

within neighborhood schools.


14/133

2One purpose of this professional project is to provide the KCFFI a school survey and

methodology Initiative participants can use to gather site-specific information about the

food and fitness environments at schools in the focus communities that they can considerwhile developing the Community Action Plan summer. For the purposes of this paper,

the food environment includes foods available to students in schools and nutrition

education. Fitness environments include physical education, physical activity and active

transportation to and from school. The other purpose of this project is to give the

Initiative information about policies and programs developed by entities outside the

schools that affect the food and fitness environments within schools.

This paper includes the methodology I used to develop and test the school survey, how I

trained community members to use the survey and a compendium of relevant policies and

programs that affect food and fitness in schools. The scope of my professional project

included developing and testing the survey, training community members to conduct the

survey and compiling and analyzing relevant school-related policies and programs. Due

to the timing of this project, only survey results from the three schools I surveyed in April

and May 2009 were available at the time I prepared this paper. I have included in the

paper a method KCFFI participants can use to compile and evaluate the survey results

they collect this summer. The paper also includes a thorough reference list and appendix

that provide additional sources of information for the KCFFI.

I was unable to find a similar document that includes a compendium of federal, state and

Seattle and Highline school district policies that affect the schools in the KCFFI focus

communities. Nor did a survey tool exist that specifically addresses the range of topics of

interest to the KCFFI. In short, this document and the survey are unique in their relevance

to this particular Initiative, but I believe the methodology I used could be replicated

elsewhere to produce a similar paper about school food and fitness environments in other

focus communities.


15/133

3The primary audiences for this paper include the following groups involved in the

KCFFI: Leadership Council, focus community lead organizations, Co-conveners,

assessment team and evaluators, and the youth agency coordinator. Each of these groupswill be described in the Introduction. Other potential audiences include the KCFFI

Collaborative Partners, which include representatives of 60 community-based groups and

other organizations from throughout the county who are concerned about food and

fitness. An additional potential audience may be the eight other Food and Fitness

collaboratives around the U.S. that received funding from the Kellogg Foundation.

This paper includes the following sections:

Executive Summary. Introduction. Description of the methodology I used to develop and test the survey and evaluate

the survey results.

Description of the methodology I used to collect and analyze the policyinformation.

Policies and programs that affect school food and fitness environments. Conclusion. References. Appendix.

In addition to this paper, I will give the KCFFI Co-conveners an electronic copy of the

survey, consent statement, survey instructions, and an Excel file for the survey results.


16/133

4INTRODUCTION

This section provides background information about the KCFFI, a description of thegeographic area and demographics of the KCFFI focus communities, the purpose and

intended audience of this professional project, a description of the planning context of

this professional project, and a brief note about how to use this document.

KCFFI Background

The King County Food and Fitness Initiative (KCFFI) is a collaborative formed in 2006

to plan for and implement a five-year Food and Fitness Initiative grant from the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation. The Foundation selected nine sites across the United States to

participate in this Initiative. The Food and Fitness Initiative is one of several W.K.

Kellogg Foundation programs and is consistent with the Foundations overall mission:

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation supports children, families, and communities as they

strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as

individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society (W.K. Kellogg

Foundation n.d.).

The Kellogg Foundations focus for the Food & Fitness Initiative is systems-level

changes that improve the food and fitness environments of entire communities (W.K.

Kellogg Foundation n.d.). Locally, the KCFFI vision follows this systems-level focus by

looking at the whole community: Creating vibrant communities that support access to

locally grown, healthy, affordable food and safe and inviting places for physical activity

and playfor everyone (KCFFI 2008) The KCFFI mission is "to foster collaborative

leadership among diverse community partners to co-create long-term, innovative

strategies to realize our vision of equitable access to resources and choices that promote

health. To achieve our goals, we actively engage with communities and youth in

planning, decision making, and fun activities" (KCFFI 2008)


17/133

5The KCFFI is currently in the two-and-a-half year planning phase of the Initiative.

Initiative leaders are preparing a Community Action Plan to submit to the Kellogg

Foundation this summer in preparation for the eight-year implementation and evaluationphase of the Initiative. If the Kellogg Foundation approves the KCFFI Community

Action Plan, between two and four million dollars will be available from the Kellogg

Foundation to implement and evaluate the plan.

The KCFFI leadership is structured as several groups: the Leadership Council, two focus

community lead organizations, Co-conveners, an assessment team and evaluators, and a

youth agency coordinator.

The 18-member Leadership Council includes residents of Delridge and White Center and

representatives from organizations focused on food and fitness (see Appendix for a

member list). The role of the Leadership Council is to offer guidance and leadership in

the planning phase of the Initiative (KCFFI 2008).

The focus community lead organizations are the Delridge Neighborhoods Development

Association (DNDA) and the White Center Community Development Association

(WCCDA). The youth coordinator is the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, an

independently operated branch of the DNDA. These organizations conduct outreach to

the two focus communities.

The Co-conveners of the KCFFI are staff members from Public Health Seattle King

County and WSU King County Extension. The role of the Co-conveners is to coordinate

the overall management of the Initiative and Kellogg Foundation grant, interactions with

the foundation, and the Initiative planning and implementation process. My primary

contact for this project is Erin MacDougall, Project Director for KCFFI at Public Health

Seattle King County.


18/133

6The ten member assessment team is comprised of faculty, researchers and staff from UW,

WSU, Public Health Seattle King County, and WSU King County Extension (see

Appendix for a member list).

Other organizations that are part of the KCFFI are Collaborative Partners. KCFFI

describes this group of 60 organizations as a cross section of organizations and

leadership including grassroots groups, community-based organizations and institutions

representing the local food system and physical activity constituencies, public health and

health care, education, recreation, economic development, transportation, urban and rural

planning groups, faith-based organizations, corporate sector, and employer groups. (see

Appendix for an organization list). The role of this group is to help guide and set the

Initiative agenda (KCFFI 2008)

The KCFFI Focus Communities

The KCFFI site selection committee selected Delridge and White Center based on a

Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process. The RFQ document states that one community

will be in Seattle and the other in South King County (KCFFI 2007 2). The RFQ includes

three criteria on which applicants were judged (KCFFI 2007 3):

History of food and fitness-related efforts - evidence of past work related toKCFFI goals of promoting access to healthy, affordable food and creating safe

and convenient places for physical activity.

History of collaboration - evidence of community partners and residents workingwell together including how long and how effective the partnerships and resulting

accomplishments were.

Community engagement - evidence of effectively involving diverse residents andcommunity members in past projects, and quality and feasibility of plans to

engage residents in KCFFI.


19/133

7During summer 2008, I was one of six students from the University of Washington (UW)

Department of Urban Design and Planning (UDP) who participated in a ten-week applied

urban planning studio course in collaboration with the KCFFI. The final product of thestudio was a report titled Food for Thought: Groundwork for the King County Food and

Fitness Initiative, that includes our neighborhood-level community food system

assessment and built environment assessment for the KCFFI (University of Washington

2008). The Food for Thoughtreport includes a detailed description of the KCFFI focus

communities that is excerpted below (University of Washington 2008 6):

Delridge: A Birds Eye View

The Delridge neighborhood is located on the southern edge of Seattle andis adjacent to and north of White Center. The greater Delridge areaincludes 36,585 residents (University of Washington 2006, App. 5.2). Theneighborhood boundary, as defined by the Delridge NeighborhoodsDevelopment Association (DNDA), is the area south of SouthwestSpokane Street and the West Seattle Bridge, east of 35th AvenueSouthwest, west of 1st Avenue South and West Marginal Way, and northof Southwest Roxbury Street (Delridge Neighborhoods DevelopmentAssociation n.d.). A 2006 UW Planning Studio report (University ofWashington 2006 2-3) notes:

Delridge is an ethnically diverse community; minoritygroups comprise about half the population. Incomes alsovary extensively, with the average household income inDelridge just slightly lower than state and county figures. . ..Delridge is most strongly characterized by residentialneighborhoods, but it is also home to a variety of large andsmall businesses. While single-family homes are mostcommon, townhomes and apartment buildings also have anotable and growing presence. Amongst the homes andbusinesses is extensive green space, including uniquenatural amenities such as Longfellow Creek and the LegacyTrail. . . A significant asset of the Delridge neighborhood isits extensive network of open space, trails and staircases. . .The current housing market in Delridge is in a rapid state oftransition, with older single-family homes and apartmentbuildings being demolished and replaced with townhousesand four-plexes. This transition is threatening theavailability of rental units and producing new housing thatis outside of the price range of the average Delridge


20/133

8resident. With the recent growth and development alongDelridge Way, business owners and community membersare increasingly optimistic about business growth.

The Seattle Times also described the changes occurring in Delridge ashousing becomes increasingly unaffordable for many residents of aneighborhood that has traditionally been home to blue-collar workers andimmigrants (Young 2007).

White Center: A Birds Eye ViewWhite Center is located immediately south of Delridge, between Seattleand the city of Burien (Figure 1). The population of the neighborhood is20,975 (Public Health Seattle King County n.d.). White Center includesapproximately 3.67 square miles of unincorporated area in King County.Public Health Seattle King County identifies White Center as the areawest of State Route 509 and north of Southwest Roxbury Street, north ofSouthwest 126th Street and extending west to 30th Avenue Southwest. A2007 UW Planning Studio report (University of Washington 2007 2)notes:

The population of White Center includes an extremelydiverse working class, with people of color making upnearly 50% of the community. In addition, over a quarter ofthe residents in the area are people under the age of 18.This vibrant character and unique diversity is WhiteCenters greatest asset, but the community faces substantialchallenges as well. Income, employment, and educationlevels in White Center are lower on average than those inthe rest of King County, and crime and health problemstend to be higher than elsewhere in the county.Compounding these problems is the fact that White Centeris an unincorporated area of King County and does nothave the resources to address many of these issues.White Center is a neighborhood in transition due toinherent pressures from population growth, poverty,annexation discussions, and the threat of gentrification.Maintaining the diversity and character of theneighborhood in the midst of change will be a challenge,yet the community has clearly indicated that preserving theunique character of the neighborhood is vitally important.


21/133

9Neighborhood Boundaries

1For the purposes of this report, the class used the Health Planning Area(HPA) boundaries defined by Public Health Seattle King County, as

some of the health data is collected at that level of analysis and HPAs canserve as rough approximations of the formal neighborhoods. However, thestreets used to define neighborhood areas for the HPA may differ from theformal boundaries.

1 This report uses the same boundaries that the class used in summer 2008.


22/133

10

Figure 1. Map of KCFFI focus communities.


23/133

11Public Agency Health Data and Indicators About the Focus Communities

The Washington Department of Health, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction,

Department of Social and Health Services/Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse,Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development, Family Policy Council,

and Liquor Control Board collaborate on the Healthy Youth Survey (HYS), which covers

several topics, including diet and physical activity (Washington Dept. of Health n.d.).

Students in the sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades completed the survey in 2002,

2004 and 2006. State and county-level data are available online. School district-level and

school-level data are available at the request of the district superintendent (Beck 2009).2

Public Health Seattle King County publishes community health indicators for the

county, but most indicators are about the adult population, not school-age children and

youth. A summary of these indicators for the KCFFI focus communities is included in the

2008 Food for Thoughtdocument (University of Washington 2008).

Schools in the Focus Communities

The focus communities include a total of 15 public schools: 11 elementary schools (ES),

two middle schools (MS) and two high schools (HS) (see Table 1). In addition to the

schools in the KCFFI focus communities, I added a 16th school, West Seattle High

School, to the schools list for the purposes of this paper and the school survey based on

input from youth at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center who attend the school. The schools

are in two schools districts: Delridge schools are in the Seattle Public Schools district,

and White Center schools are in the Highline Public Schools district. Figure 2 below

shows the geographic distribution of the 16 schools.

2 I was unable to locate a copy of school-district-level or school-level reports from either district as of thetime of this writing.


24/133

12Table 1. Public schools in KCFFI focus communities.

School School District

Beverly Park Elementary School Highline

Cascade Middle School Highline

Cedarhurst Elementary School Highline

Evergreen High School Campus Highline

Hilltop Elementary Highline

Mount View Elementary School Highline

Southern Heights Elementary School Highline

White Center Heights Elementary School Highline

Cooper Elementary School3

Seattle

Denny Middle School Seattle

Highland Park Elementary School Seattle

Roxhill Elementary School SeattleSanislo Elementary School Seattle

Sealth High School Seattle

West Seattle Elementary School Seattle

West Seattle High School Seattle

The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is the state

education agency for Washington. OSPI publishes annual school and school district-level

demographics and academic performance data. The demographic data from OSPI in

Tables 2, 3 and 4 below are about students at schools in the KCFFI focus communities(Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction 2008). OSPI data reflect changes in

student demographics in both districts during the past five years. Increases or decreases

of five percent or more are highlighted in green in Table 2 to show the highest changes in

student demographics. In some cases, the change is greater than ten percent. Similarly,

increases or decreases of five percent or more in the percentage of students participating

in the free and reduced meal program are highlighted in table 3.4 In two cases, the

3 The Seattle Public Schools Board approved a Capacity Management Plan in January 2009 that will closeCooper Elementary School next fall and relocate students to other sites. For the purposes of thisprofessional project, Cooper Elementary remains on the list and map.4 I was unable to compare 2002-2003 and 2007-2008 data for percentage of students in special education,transitional bilingual programs or migrant status because the 2002-2003 data reports for all the schools inthe KCFFI focus communities list 0 for those three categories.


25/133

13percentage increased more than ten percent and in one case the percentage decreased

more than ten percent.


26/133

14

Figure 2. Map of schools in KCFFI focus communities.


27/133

15Table 2. Student demographics.

Student Demographics

(2002-2003 and 2007-2008)

School Students Male Female2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

Highline School District 17,735 17,331 51.5% 51.4% 48.5% 48.6%

Beverly Park ES 537 455 48.8% 45.5% 51.2% 54.5%

Cascade MS 709 550 50.9% 54.5% 49.1% 45.5%

Cedarhurst ES 330 433 55.8% 53.3% 44.2% 46.7%

Evergreen HS Campus 1,183 4* 51.6% 25.0% 48.4% 75.0%

Hilltop ES 660 563 50.3% 51.2% 49.7% 48.8%

Mount View ES 475 595 54.3% 48.2% 45.7% 51.8%

Southern Heights ES 319 363 48.0% 52.9% 52.0% 47.1%

White Center Heights ES 404 456 50.0% 52.0% 50.0% 48.0%

Seattle Public Schools 47,853 45,581 51.3% 51.0% 48.7% 49.0%

Cooper ES 368 266 50.3% 48.5% 49.7% 51.5%

Denny MS 814 622 50.0% 50.5% 50.0% 49.5%

Highland Park ES 429 405 51.7% 52.3% 48.3% 47.7%

Roxhill ES 302 253 57.9% 57.7% 42.1% 42.3%

Sanislo ES 324 312 52.2% 47.1% 47.8% 52.9%

Sealth HS 978 913 50.0% 49.8% 50.0% 50.2%

West Seattle ES 282 271 50.0% 55.7% 50.0% 44.3%

West Seattle HS 1,053 1,240 54.3% 52.4% 45.7% 47.6%

Highlighted cells = >10% increase or decrease between 2002-2003 and 2007-2008


28/133

16Table 3. Student demographics: ethnicity.

Student Demographics Ethnicity, as percent of enrolled students

(2002-2003 and 2007-2008)

School Am.Indian/AK

Native

Asian Black Hispanic White

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

Highline

School

District

2.1 2.0 20.7 21.2 13.3 14.5 17.9 27.0 45.9 35.2

Beverly ParkES

2.0 1.3 28.9 16.0 11.5 23.5 33.3 38.0 24.2 21.1

Cascade MS 3.0 2.0 29.9 35.8 13.8 14.5 14.4 30.9 38.9 16.7

CedarhurstES

1.5 1.6 21.8 23.3 7.3 11.1 19.7 40.0 49.7 23.1

EvergreenHS Campus

2.1 25.0 34.3 50.0 12.5 ND 16.4 ND 34.7 25.0

Hilltop ES 3.9 1.6 24.5 25.4 17.0 13.7 20.9 42.6 33.6 16.7

Mount ViewES

3.6 2.4 36.8 35.8 9.7 14.6 26.3 31.3 23.6 15.6

SouthernHeights ES

0.6 0.6 22.3 31.4 9.4 9.9 24.1 34.2 43.6 23.1

White Center

Heights ES

0.5 1.5 45.0 43.0 21.5 20.0 19.3 23.9 13.6 11.6

Seattle

Public

Schools

2.0 2.1 23.3 22.1 23.0 21.3 11.0 11.6 40.1 42.8

Cooper ES 1.6 0.4 27.4 19.2 34.5 42.1 17.9 20.3 18.5 18.0

Denny MS 4.4 4.5 22.1 20.4 23.5 26.7 21.3 23.0 28.7 25.4

HighlandPark ES

3.3 2.5 35.2 30.9 15.6 18.3 27.3 31.9 18.6 16.5

Roxhill ES 2.0 2.8 21.2 22.5 22.5 23.7 33.1 37.2 21.2 13.8

Sanislo ES 3.1 1.9 34.9 27.6 19.1 16.0 15.1 11.9 27.8 42.6

Sealth HS 3.1 3.6 26.4 21.2 17.5 29.1 22.6 22.0 30.5 24.0

West SeattleES

2.8 4.1 30.5 21.8 39.0 33.6 19.1 23.2 8.5 17.3

West SeattleHS

3.3 2.5 23.2 22.2 14.6 16.0 11.2 15.5 47.7 43.8

ND = No dataHighlighted cells = >5% increase or decrease between 2002-2003 and 2007-2008


29/133

17Table 4. Student demographics: special programs.

Student Demographics Special Programs, as percentage of students

(2002-2003 and 2007-2008)

School Free/ReducedPrice Meals

Special Ed TransitionalBilingual

Migrant

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

2002-03

2007-08

Highline School

District

50.5 56.7 11.4 12.6 10.7 18.6 0.0 0.0

Beverly Park ES 71.3 79.0 0.0 11.2 0.0 28.5 0.0 0.0

Cascade MS 59.2 72.8 0.0 15.3 0.0 18.3 0.0 0.0

Cedarhurst ES 56.0 71.0 0.0 11.8 0.0 33.7 0.0 0.0

Evergreen HSCampus

53.6 ND 0.0 ND 0.0 ND 0.0 ND

Hilltop ES 63.2 72.0 0.0 11.3 0.0 31.7 0.0 0.0

Mount View ES 72.1 71.1 0.0 14.8 0.0 31.8 0.0 0.0

Southern Heights ES 59.7 69.2 0.0 14.0 0.0 26.6 0.0 0.0

White Center HeightsES

88.1 85.5 0.0 11.7 0.0 35.5 0.0 0.0

Seattle Public

Schools

41.9 40.5 13.0 13.9 12.1 11.8 0.4 0.5

Cooper ES 78.3 79.5 0.0 21.2 0.0 33.2 0.0 1.5

Denny MS 65.3 64.1 0.0 16.7 0.0 12.2 0.0 0.5

Highland Park ES 66.7 74.0 0.0 11.7 0.0 25.7 0.0 1.2

Roxhill ES 84.7 77.4 0.0 29.6 0.0 34.3 0.0 1.5Sanislo ES 59.6 50.2 0.0 9.2 0.0 19.4 0.0 0.0

Sealth HS 52.3 60.9 0.0 13.4 0.0 17.9 0.0 3.1

West Seattle ES 97.1 78.9 0.0 25.9 0.0 32.3 0.0 0.0

West Seattle HS 34.3 34.2 0.0 11.8 0.0 7.6 0.0 0.2

ND = No dataHighlighted cells = >5% increase or decrease between 2002-2003 and 2007-2008

Purpose

The purpose of this professional project is to provide the Co-conveners, focus community

lead organizations, and the Leadership Council a survey tool that can be used at the 16

schools, a way to collect the survey results, training to individuals interested in

conducting the survey, and a compendium of the various policies set by agencies outside

the schools that affect the food and fitness environments in the schools. Like the survey,


30/133

18the policy section is intended to give the Initiative participants a snapshot of the existing

conditions and context within which schools operate with regard to food and fitness.

The information from the survey will give the KCFFI baseline information about a range

of topics related to food and fitness in the schools. This survey tool can then be used in

the future to assess changes in the school environments and progress toward the KCFFI

goals. The immediate goal is for the KCFFI leaders to have information about schools

they can use as they develop the KCFFI Community Action Plan during summer 2009.

The Kellogg Foundation recognizes the role schools can play in child health and

development: The school system domain, especially the institutional policies that govern

site selection, curriculum, and off-hours use of school facilities, can either encourage or

inhibit physical activity among children (W.K. Kellogg Foundation 2008 1). In addition,

the KCFFI values include meaningful youth participation(KCFFI 2008). Given this

focus on schools, children and youth, the KCFFI should understand the food and fitness

environment in the schools in Delridge and White Center as the leadership develops the

Community Action Plan and for future implementation and evaluation in the KCFFI

focus communities.

Audience

The primary audiences for this paper are the KCFFI Leadership Council, focus

community lead organizations, youth coordinator, Co-conveners, and assessment team. A

secondary audience is the KCFFI Collaborative Partners, which include representatives

of 60 community-based groups and other organizations from throughout King County

who are concerned about food and fitness. Other potential audiences may be the Food

and Fitness collaboratives at the other eight sites in the U.S.


31/133

19Professional Planning Context

This project is consistent with professional planning practice. This paper includes

analysis of existing policies and programs and a method for community members togather information about existing conditions in the focus community schools. Existing

conditions reports and state of the community reports provide a basis for planning

processes, community participation in planning and for future assessment of progress

(Berke, Godschalk et al. 2006). The information community members gather using the

survey in this paper can provide both a baseline or snapshot of existing conditions and a

way to assess changes in the school food and fitness environments in the future.

The policy and program section of this paper gives KCFFI leaders additional information

about policies and programs that affect food and fitness environments in schools, and

may offer potential areas for systems-level change. Gathering and analyzing information

about community characteristics are part of many planning processes (Hoch 2000),

In addition, I trained four community members during this project to conduct the school

surveys, rather than conducting surveys at all 16 schools myself. This is consistent with

planning norms that support public participation in the planning process and the KCFFI

mission to foster collaborative leadership among diverse community partners to co-

create long-term, innovative strategies to realize our vision of equitable access to

resources and choices that promote health. To achieve our goals, we actively engage with

communities and youth in planning, decision making, and fun activities (KCFFI 2008).

Public participation in planning is not new and strategies and purposes vary. Arnstein

(1969) describes a ladder of citizen participation, on which participation can move from

simply informing and consulting citizens to partnerships and citizen control of the

planning process. Kretzmann et al (1993) focus on including community members and

organizations as a way to build community visions and strategies based on existing

community assets. Berke et al (2006) describe collaborative planning in the context of


32/133

20consensus-building processes and that inclusive participation is one of the distinguishing

characteristics of consensus-building. Martz (1995), Burby (2003) and Sirianni (2007)

each describe the positive impact of public participation in local planning onimplementation of plans.

One form of public participation is participatory action research (PAR), a method by

which community members conduct planning, research or information gathering. PAR is

a way for professional researchers and community residents to collaborate on

investigations into issues - such as housing, healthcare, and environmental conservation -

with the goal of achieving positive social change. PAR values both scholarly and

community-based perspectives to address questions related to living conditions, services,

and policy, in order to make life better for people living in a given community, as defined

by that community (Center for Cultural Understanding and Change n.d.).

A study of the use of PAR in building healthy communities describes a distinctive aspect

of PAR as not the methods employed, which may be either quantitative or qualitative,

but the active involvement of the people whose lives are affected by the issue under study

in every phase of the process (Minkler 2000 192) and characterizes PAR as:

Participatory. Cooperative, engaging community members and researchers in a joint process in

which both contribute equally.

A co-learning process for researchers and community members. A method for systems development and local community capacity building. An empowering process through which participants can increase control over their

lives by nurturing community strengths and problem-solving abilities; and a way tobalance research and action.

The methodology I used to develop the survey included input and feedback from

community lead organizations. The survey implementation includes youth from


33/133

21Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. Representatives of the community lead organizations

will be responsible for collecting the survey results and working with the Co-conveners

to summarize the results for use in the Initiative planning process this summer. Thatplanning process includes the community lead organizations. These methods are

consistent with the descriptions of PAR and public participation described above.

How To Use This Document

This paper includes a detailed description of the methodology I used to develop the

school survey. Readers can find in the Appendix a copy of the survey instructions,

consent statement for interviewees and the survey itself. The policies and programs

section of the paper will give the reader background information on relevant policies and

programs that will be useful - along with the survey results - to get a better picture of the

overall environment within which schools operate. Sources are cited throughout the paper

and readers can use the Reference list to find more details about the sources. In addition

to the survey and related documents, the Appendix includes contact information for

relevant local and state agencies. The reader can use these contact lists to find additional

information about specific topics in the paper.


34/133

22METHODOLOGY

This section describes the methods I used to develop the school survey, the training forcommunity members, and the policies section. Because survey results from several

schools will be available after I complete this professional project, I have also included a

method the KCFFI can use to compile survey results as additional data becomes available

this summer.

Developing the Survey

The survey included in this report (see Appendix) is based on several sources and on

feedback from KCFFI leaders who reviewed the draft survey during winter 2009. Sara

Coulter, a graduate student in the public health program at UW, compiled a draft list of

school-related questions and topics in spring 2008 based on her review of assessment

guidance from the Kellogg Foundation, information from KCFFI Project Director Erin

MacDougall and from research Ms. Coulter conducted with two other UW graduate

students, Kara Martin and Torence Powell, also in spring 2008 (Coulter 2008) under the

guidance of UW Assistant Professor Branden Born. That research was the groundwork

for some of the neighborhood-level food system and built environment assessments that

were the subject of the summer 2008 planning studio course, also overseen by Born,

described in the Executive Summary. As noted, that studio course did not focus

specifically on the food and fitness environment in schools.

My work on this survey used this previous research as a starting point. Based on

discussions with MacDougall and Born, I first separated the site-specific questions and

topics from those that are school district, state or federal government level issues. My

draft survey included all the topics on the initial list I received at the start of my work on

this project in winter 2009. At that point in the planning process for the Initiative, the

participants had not yet decided where to focus the Initiative in the Community Action


35/133

23Plan, and wanted information about a broad range of topics related to school food and

fitness environments. Future surveys may focus on fewer topics with greater depth.

I contacted KCFFI assessment team members in December 2008 and January 2009 to get

their input. The assessment team is comprised of individuals with professional and

academic research experience and assessment expertise. This input was necessary to

ensure the survey format, content and scope will generate information the Initiative needs

in a way that is also replicable at all 16 schools.

At the suggestion of several assessment team members, I also looked at existing surveys

and assessment tools to find possible questions or formats that might be useful for this

survey. I reviewed assessment tools on the National Cancer Institute Risk Factor

Monitoring and Methods web site, the Michigan State University Extension Team

Nutrition web site, the School Health Policies and Programs (SHPPS) questionnaires and

School Health Index (SHI) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC), the Family Cook School Community Food Assessment toolkit, assessments the

John C. Stalker Institute of Food and Nutrition at Framingham State College (Mass.)

developed, a New Mexico Department of Transportation assessment tool for

neighborhood streets, and a Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) survey of

school vending machines.

I also looked at assessment guidance from the Kellogg Foundation and other questions

that were the result of research conducted by the three graduate students working with

Professor Born in spring 2008. The purpose of this additional research was to find

existing questions or formats that others have used to assess school environments that

may also be useful in this setting.

All of these other assessment tools and guidance provided some suggestions for specific

questions or ways to format questions and answers, but the time limitation to conduct the


36/133

24KCFFI survey and the breadth of topics in the KCFFI survey required a limited number

of questions for each topic. Many of these other assessment tools are very extensive but

only cover one topic, such as the CSPI survey about vending machines or the SHPPassessments which cover several topics. The CDC estimates each topic in the SHPP to

take approximately an hour. Other evaluation tools, such as the Michigan State

University Extension evaluation tools, are more subjective or qualitative evaluations.

Based on conversations with community leads and with Donna Johnson, an assessment

team member and UW faculty member who has conducted research at schools, I made

every effort to shorten the survey so that interviewers would need no more than 45-60

minutes to conduct the entire survey, which covers a range of topics about food and

fitness, school facilities for students, existing programs, and community access to school

facilities. I tried to minimize the number of open-ended questions because of the expected

time limitations and also tried to include more objective measures of the schools

characteristics so the results would be easier to compare with future survey results.

I drafted an initial set of questions in February 2009 that I sent to the assessment team

and Co-conveners to review. By March 2009, the KCFFI had also developed a detailed

list of potential strategies and tactics the Initiative may consider as it develops the

Community Action Plan (Krieger, MacDougall et al. 2009). That list includes, but is not

limited to, school-related strategies and tactics. I revised the draft survey in March 2009

to include questions based on specific school-related strategies and tactics in that

document to ensure the survey addresses issues of interest to the Initiative. While that

document is not the same thing as the Community Action Plan, it was an early effort by

the Initiative leaders to begin identifying potential strategies and tactics. All topics in the

potential school-related tactics are consistent with the topics I already covered in the draft

survey, but I added some new questions based specifically on the potential tactics.


37/133

25The review process continued for several drafts until April 2009. The KCFFI Project

Coordinator mailed and e-mailed a letter from me to the principal each of the 15 schools

in the focus communities in March 2009 to let the principals know about the upcomingKCFFI school survey.5 In April 2009, I contacted three schools in Delridge and White

Center to request meetings with the principals so that I could conduct the survey myself

to understand how the survey works and make adjustments to the survey as needed before

giving the final version to the community lead organizations. The community lead

organizations will then identify interested community members who will then conduct

the survey at the remaining 13 schools this summer.

Testing the Survey

I conducted the survey with the principal at Sanislo Elementary on April 10, 2009, the

principal at Roxhill Elementary on April 17, 2009 and the Physical Education instructor

at Southern Heights Elementary on May 12, 2009. I selected three schools so that I could

test the survey at schools in each of the two school districts. I chose three schools where,

based on feedback from the community lead organizations, the community leads did not

already have good contacts, so that the community leads could focus on schools where

they might be able to more quickly set up appointments and conduct the survey later

based on existing relationships with the school principals or other staff.

Training Others to Conduct Survey

I met with the Founding Director and staff from Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, and

the KCFFI Project Director on May 4, 2009 at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center to

provide a brief overview for the community leads about the survey purpose, content,

instructions for conducting the survey, and to discuss which schools they would be

willing to survey. In addition, I met with Youngstown staff and four youth at the center

on May 13, 2009 to review the survey purpose, how to set up meetings with school

5 I added West Seattle High School to the schools list in May (see Introduction).


38/133

26administrators and answer any questions they had about survey questions or the

procedure for conducting the survey. Each of the community lead organizations is

responsible for community outreach for the Initiative and, therefore, will identify staff orvolunteers to conduct the survey at the 13 remaining schools in the focus communities.

Collecting Survey Results

I created a spreadsheet file in Microsoft Excel with two sheets: one for Seattle schools

and another for Highline schools. Within each sheet, I grouped schools by grade level

(elementary, middle or high schools) I grouped the schools this way for multiple reasons:

each district has separate policies that affect school operations, schools differ from the

elementary to high school levels, and including all 16 schools in one sheet would result in

a spreadsheet too wide to print. The file includes spaces for all 41 survey questions, space

for additional comments from the interviews that were not included in the survey answers

(e.g. additional comments following a question with a Yes/No answer), and space for the

interviewer observations of crosswalks and sidewalks around the school.

The individual(s) who summarize the data after it is in the file will need to manually

summarize the responses. Summarizing the responses in a narrative format should be

feasible since there are only 16 schools. In addition, I found no easy way to electronically

summarize the answers.

Figure 3 below is a detail view of the Excel file I created for the purpose of collecting and

storing the school survey results for all 16 schools. I will compile survey results in this

file in May and give an electronic copy of the file to the KCFFI Project Director in early

June 2009. Excel should be sufficient because I am using the program primarily as a

table. Excel is easy to use for this purpose and is a widely available program. A database

is unnecessary for the collection of this survey information because of the small number

of schools and difficulty finding a commonly used and easy to use database program.


39/133

27

Figure 3. Detail of survey results collection file

The KCFFI has developed a draft of potential strategies and tactics the Initiative may

focus on in the Community Action Plan, including several school-related tactics (KCFFI

2009). Many of the questions in the latest version of the survey are based on specific

tactics in that document so that the survey results will provide information that helps the

Initiative decide which strategies and tactics to include in the Community Action Plan

this summer. Readers can focus on the specific survey questions and results related to

school gardens, for example, and, based on the survey results for those particular

questions, decide how to prioritize the potential tactics related to school gardens that the

Initiative leaders developed in March 2009.

I did not develop a method of scoring or ranking answers that allows the Initiative to

calculate an overall score or rating of the school. The purpose of the survey data is toprovide baseline information about a range of school characteristics that, while related in

a broad sense, are difficult to score that still allows the reader to differentiate in a

meaningful way (e.g. Is a school with a garden but no Safe Routes to School program


40/133

28better than a school with a SRTS program but no garden? How would that score help

the KCFFI decide where to focus its resources?) Finding a way to produce an overall

score or evaluation of the food and fitness environment of a school would also bechallenging given the fact that the survey only looks at site-specific characteristics,

which, by definition, leaves out many elements (e.g. the school lunch program) that do

enhance the food and fitness environment of the schools. Finally, producing an overall

evaluation or score could distract from the Initiatives efforts to find specific areas to

focus the Initiatives resources within schools and other environments in the focus

communities in the coming years.

I will provide an electronic copy of the Excel file I created for compiling the survey

results to KCFFI Project Director by June 1, 2009 and will include instructions about

how to input survey results. Staff from either the Co-conveners or one of the community

leads will input the survey results after the remaining 13 surveys are completed.

Policy and Program Research Methodology

The purpose of this section of this paper is to provide the Initiative an overview and

analysis of policies and programs developed by entities outside the schools that affect the

food and fitness environments in schools. These entities may include school districts, the

state of Washington and the federal government, and programs such as Safe Routes to

School. I found much of the information for this section from online sources, including

school district web sites, state and federal government agency web sites, and nonprofit

organization web sites. I spoke on the telephone with school district nutrition services

staff from both districts and physical education staff from the Seattle district office (see

Appendix for district staff contacts), and individuals at organizations such as Feet First, a

local pedestrian advocacy organization, when I needed additional information or


41/133

29clarification of certain policies or programs.6 Based on conversations with Erin

MacDougall and Branden Born, I developed the following method to describe and

organize this information: I describe the policy, where it originated, what it does, andhow it affects schools in the focus communities. I have also noted whether questions

about the topics are included in the school survey. All sources are cited and contact

information, web site URLs and other resources are in the References section and/or

Appendix.

UW Human Subjects Division Approval of Protocol

As a graduate student at UW conducting surveys and gathering information from

individuals for the purposes of developing knowledge about the schools in the focus

communities, my work meets the UW Human Subjects Division (HSD) definition of

research (UW Human Subjects Division 2008). The UW HSD approved my project

protocol in February 2009 (Maman 2009). Consistent with HSD rules, I developed an

oral consent statement that I read to each person I interviewed at the three schools where

I tested the survey (see Appendix). Although UW required this statement only for

interviews conducted where the information will be included in this paper, much of the

background information in the statement would be useful for any interviewer to read

before starting the interview to explain the purpose of the research, how the information

will be used (i.e. the information is not confidential), and the rights of the interviewee.

6 I was unable to speak with nutrition education staff in either district or the PE manager for HighlinePublic Schools by the time of this writing.


42/133

30DISCUSSION OF SURVEY AND POLICY RESEARCH PROCESS

As noted in the Introduction, one purpose of this professional project is to provide the

KCFFI a survey tool Initiative participants can use to collect site-specific information

about school characteristics and a way to collect the survey results. The Methodology

section describes how I prepared the survey and conducted the survey at three schools

before handing off the survey to the community leads to use at the remaining schools.

This section of the paper includes my reflections on developing and testing the survey

and the policy research process. I also discuss ways the KCFFI might improve this

method in the future. This section also includes my observations of survey results from

three schools I surveyed in April and May 2009. I also connect the survey questions to

the relevant policies that I will describe in further detail in the next section of the paper.

In general, I think this document is unique but my methodology is transferrable to studies

of school food and fitness environments in other communities. I have compiled

information about federal, state and Seattle and Highline school district policies that

affect the schools in the KCFFI focus communities. I have also developed a survey tool

that specifically addresses the range of topics of interest to the KCFFI. While this

document and the survey are unique in their relevance to the KCFFI, the methodology I

used is transferrable to other communities interested in producing a similar paper about

school food and fitness environments.

Reflections on Methodology

The school survey I developed is intended to provide the KCFFI with baselineinformation about food and fitness environments in schools now and serve as a way to

measure changes in schools in the future as the Initiative implements its Community

Action Plan. One potential limitation of using questions based on assessment guidance


43/133

31from the Kellogg Foundation or other existing assessment tools is that they may not

provide information related to the specific areas of most interest to the local Initiative.

As noted in the Methodology section, when I began work on this project in winter 2009,

the KCFFI leaders had not yet decided where to focus the Initiative in the Community

Action Plan, and wanted information about a broad range of topics related to school food

and fitness environments. I addressed these potential problems by including questions

about school-related potential tactics the KCFFI identified in winter 2009 and by asking

for feedback about the draft survey from the KCFFI assessment team throughout the

survey development process. Working with multiple stakeholders to develop the survey,

including the KCFFI Co-conveners, assessment team and other Initiative participants,

provided a thorough review of the survey questions and overall methodology.

The survey I developed using this method will allow the Initiative to collect the

information about school characteristics, programs and policies that are of interest to the

Initiative at this point in the planning process. KCFFI leaders may decide to conduct

other quantitative or qualitative surveys of parents, teachers, students or other community

members now or as part of an evaluation later if they decide additional views on the same

topics would be helpful to the Initiative, but such surveys were beyond the scope of my

professional project.

I was able to cover the topics the KCFFI identified in a survey length that was acceptable

to the three individuals I surveyed. (i.e. none of the interviews was longer than 30

minutes and none ended before I asked all the survey questions.) I, therefore, did not have

to choose whether to limit the number of topics. Initiative leaders may face such a

tradeoff between including a broad range of topics or focusing on a narrower set of topics

either this summer as Initiative leaders decide on topics for the Community Action Plan

or in future evaluation surveys. While the survey I developed does gather information

about many topics, the Initiative may want to follow up with schools on specific areas of


44/133

32interest as those become clearer this summer. Choosing to focus on fewer topics with

greater depth in the future, however, may be appropriate and may provide the type of

information of interest to the Initiative for other surveys at that time.

Another limitation of this methodology is the potential for errors or inconsistent results if

multiple individuals conduct the survey. I addressed this by reducing jargon in the survey

questions and limiting open-ended questions so questions are easy for interviewers to

explain, easy for principals and others to understand, and responses are easy to record and

compile. As noted above, however, Initiative leaders may want to add more open-ended

questions in future surveys to gather more in-depth information about certain topics.

An additional limitation is the potential for variations in data as a result of revisions to the

survey following my initial test of the survey at three schools. I did not add new

questions as a result of testing the survey. I made minor changes to some questions to

make them easier to read and made minor changes to checklist answers for two questions

to better capture possible answers to those questions. Adding more questions, or more

open-ended questions, would require reducing the topics covered or require more time to

conduct the survey. Given the comments I heard from assessment team members about

the limited time I should expect with principals, extending the time needed to conduct the

survey did not seem like a good idea. One potential issue this presents is that I would

have had to conduct the survey or parts of the survey again at the first three schools

had I decided it was necessary to make substantive changes to the content of the survey,

so that the Initiative used the same survey at all 16 schools.

Based on my experience, I feel a separate food survey and fitness survey is unnecessary. I

would suggest in the future using a different survey for each school level, however, to

make the survey more clear for the interviewer. Some questions are only for elementary

schools, others for high schools. After talking with individuals who will conduct the

survey at middle schools and high schools, I realized that compiling all topics and


45/133

33questions in a single survey could be confusing to interviewers. I addressed this by noting

which questions are for elementary schools and which for high schools, but a separate

survey document for school grade level might be more helpful.

Conducting the survey at three schools in April and May 2009 gave me the opportunity to

both see how the survey worked and an opportunity to introduce school administrators to

the KCFFI. The KCFFI leadership can establish new relationships with local schools or

build on existing relationships through the process of conducting this survey.

One topic that came up during conversations with assessment team members and

community lead organizations was whether I would conduct the survey with teachers,

parents and students. Based on early conversations with the Project Director, we

determined the focus for this survey would be principals or other school administrators.

The reason for this was that this survey is intended to gather primarily quantitative

information about school characteristics, programs and policies rather than qualitative

information about school food and fitness. This should reduce some potential problems

associated with interviewing only one person or only interviewing the principal rather

than interviewing a large group of staff, parents or others at each school. A more

qualitative survey could generate useful information for the Initiative but was outside the

scope of my project.

A tradeoff I faced with this methodology is the potential limitation of conducting the

survey with one person at each school. While the two principals and one teacher I spoke

with when I tested the survey answered all the survey questions, this may not be the case

at all schools as the community leads conduct the survey at the other 13 schools, and may

require speaking with additional staff to obtain a response to each survey question. The

survey includes instructions for the interviewer to obtain names and contact information

for other staff if the primary interview subject does not know the answer to a question.


46/133

34In addition, limiting the survey to one or even a few staff members at a school limits the

information to that which the principal or other staff person can provide. While principals

likely know the answers to many of the questions about school facilities and programs,some questions are specific to the classroom and, therefore, principals may not know the

answer or have the same information a teacher might have. One example is the question

regarding which foods, if any, are used in classrooms as a reward or for celebrations. This

may be something that a teacher could answer more accurately. The Initiative needs to

bear this in mind when reviewing the survey results.

I found the survey to be easy to conduct but also feel that my effort to address so many

different topics in as brief a time as possible limited my ability to follow up on some

questions where additional information might be helpful. I heard from assessment team

members while revising the draft survey questions that I would probably have very

limited time to meet with school principals, so I made every effort to limit the number of

open-ended questions and the total number of questions.

While this survey will provide good baseline information this year, additional discussions

with assessment team members and individuals who conduct the survey this summer

would be helpful before conducting this survey as a follow up to the Initiative

implementation in future years. Their feedback and input will be useful to determine

whether the same format and same set of questions would still be useful or whether to

focus only on the topics that are the focus of the Initiative implementation.

While the survey addresses site-specific characteristics of schools, the survey topics are

related to policies and programs developed and administered outside schools. Some of

the policies I describe in the next section include specific requirements and expectations.

While the survey I developed is not intended to be a monitoring tool, the process of

conducting the survey does offer an opportunity to learn about the extent to which

policies are being implemented. This provides some measure of accountability because


47/133

35community members are asking questions related to the implementation of specific

policies and programs.

In addition, asking community members to conduct the surveys rather than conducting

the survey myself at all 16 schools is a way to engage community members in the

Initiative that can encourage their interest in what is happening in local schools and

benefit from their knowledge of the focus community schools. Actively engaging

community members in planning and decision-making is part of the KCFFI mission

(KCFFI 2008).

One limitation of the methodology for the policy section is the list of policies and

programs is not exhaustive and could be longer. As noted, I started with a list of topics

and questions that were the result of earlier research for the Initiative and limited my

work to the topics on that list based on discussions with the KCFFI Project Director.

Initial Observations

Conclusions about trends among all 16 schools would be premature since I surveyed only

three schools in April and May 2009, all three were elementary schools and they were

from each of the two districts. A few initial observations are worth noting based on my

experience at these three schools, however. KCFFI leaders may want to pay attention to

the following topics as additional survey results come in from other schools to see

whether these are trends.

All three schools I surveyed have gardens that they use for educational purposes. Thetype varies from a single garden to planter boxes. While the two districts do not have

specific school garden policies, this may be a potential opportunity for follow up if

the Initiative decides to focus on school gardens. Schools that already use gardens for

educational purposes may be a resource for other schools in the focus communities.

In addition, the Initiative may want to follow up to learn how these schools maintain

the gardens during the summer growing season and whether this is an area where the


48/133

36Initiative could be involved. The survey does not include a follow up question about

maintenance of the gardens during the summer.

Two of the three schools schedule recess before lunch. Both made the change thisschool year. As I have noted in the section of this paper about recess before lunch,

much of the evidence I found about the benefits of recess before lunch elsewhere in

the country is very recent and anecdotal, and Seattle Public Schools encourages but

does not require recess before lunch.7 Since this is a relatively new practice, KCFFI

may want to follow up with schools that have recess before lunch to understand the

barriers and get anecdotal information about the successes and challenges these

schools may have experienced during the transition to recess before lunch if the

Initiative decides to focus on this.

Only one of the three schools sells competitive foods in the cafeteria. That schoolsells yogurt in addition to the regular school lunch. If few other schools sell

competitive foods in the cafeteria, this may be an area the Initiative does not need to

focus on in terms of discouraging students from choosing unhealthy competitive

foods during meal times. Additional research would be needed to determine if schools

are interested in adding healthy competitive food items, particularly if they do not sell

any competitive foods now.

All three schools are interested in providing free fresh fruits and vegetables. Giventhe small size of the federal and state Fresh Fruit and Vegetable programs, however,

the KCFFI will need to explore how to help schools provide such snacks if additional

schools are also interested and the Initiative decides to focus on this type of program.

Only one of the three schools had assemblies or other events where the speaker talkedabout food or health-related topics. If few other schools have had similar events, this

could be a possible opportunity for the Initiative, given the range of experience andexpertise about food and fitness among the numerous participating organizations.

7 I did not find a specific policy about this for Highline Public Schools.


49/133

37 All three schools indicated they are interested in increasing parental involvement in

nutrition promotion activities at school.

Two of the three schools do not currently have programs to encourage bicycling andwalking. Both indicated they are interested to learn how to incorporate such programs

in their schools.

As noted, these initial observations are based on results of only three surveys. Whether

these are truly trends will become clearer as the community lead organizations complete

the surveys at the remaining 13 schools and review the results. Trends associated with

other issues covered in the survey may become more apparent at that time.

Survey Questions and Related Policy and Program Sources

While the survey is intended to address site-specific characteristics of schools, the survey

topics are related to policies and programs developed and administered outside schools.

Table 6 below shows the connection between survey questions and topics and related

policies, if a policy exists. The next section of this paper describes these policies and

programs in detail.

Table 5. Survey questions and related policy and program sources.

Survey Questions and Topics Source of Related Policy or Program

School food service (breakfast, lunch,summer programs, snacks, food source).(Questions 1, 3, 4)

Federal school food programs, USDAregulations, state OSPI guidelines, schooldistrict policies.

Competitive foods (a la carte items in thecafeteria, vending machines, school stores).(Questions 2, 5, 7, 8, 9).

School district policies and procedures.

Food promotions/advertising.(Question 6).


Drinking water.(Questions 10, 35, 36).


School gardens.(Questions 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).

No specific district policies.

Fundraising.(Question 16).

School district competitive food policiesand procedures.


50/133

38Food in the classroom.(Questions 17, 18).

School district competitive food policiesand procedures.

Nutrition education (classroom,

assemblies/events).(Questions 19, 20, 21).

State laws, OSPI health and fitness

guidelines, school district policies andprocedures.

Health and physical education.(Questions 22, 23, 24, 25).

State laws, OSPI health and fitnessguidelines, school district policies.

Active transportation (bicycling, walking,crosswalks, sidewalks, other).(Questions 26, 27, 28).

Unable to find specific policy to encourageactive transportation. Programs includeSafe Routes to School (federal, stateguidelines for grants; nonprofit resourcesfor program design). Transportationagencies responsible for streets, crossingsand sidewalks.

Recess.(Questions 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34). Unable to find state or school district recesspolicy. Seattle Public Schools encouragesrecess before lunch.

Facilities for PE and recess.(Question 35).

Unable to find specific school districtpolicies that specify which facilities aschool should/must have.

Community access to school facilities forphysical fitness and recreation.(Questions 36, 37).

School district policies and procedures forrental and joint use.

Injury prevention and safety.(Question 38).

School district policies.

Wellness policy implementation.(Question 39). Federal child nutrition law and regulations,state law and regulation, school districtwellness policies and procedures.

Employee wellness programs.(Questions 40, 41).

Unable to find specific school districtpolicy.


51/133

39POLICIES AND PROGRAMS THAT AFFECT SCHOOLS

The survey I described above is intended to gather information about site-specificpolicies and programs initiated inside schools that affect the food and fitness environment

in schools.

This section describes policies and programs developed outside the schools that affect

food and fitness environments in schools. Several school district, state and federal

policies and programs shape the food and fitness environments in schools. In Seattle and

Highline schools, for example, district policies related to food services, nutrition and

physical education in schools fall under the category ofwellness policies.8 In addition,

much of the funding for school food programs is from the federal government.

Understanding these and other policies and programs can help the KCFFI decide where

to focus the Initiatives time and other resources in the Community Action Plan and

throughout the implementation of the Initiative. This part of the professional project is

intended to provide the Initiative leadership with a compendium of relevant policies and

programs that affect schools. This paper is not a typical policy analysis, which would

evaluate or compare policies with the intention of providing the reader specific

recommendations for action or compare the policies to determine which is better or more

effective. The KCFFI leadership has already begun to compile potential strategies and

tactics for the Community Action Plan. This section of the paper will add to the

information available for consideration during that planning process.

Much of the information for this section is from publicly-available information on school

district and other public agency web sites, web sites of organization that develop

8 School district policies and procedures cited in this paper are available on the Seattle Public Schools andHighline Public Schools policies and procedures web pages. Highline Public Schools:http://www.hsd401.org/ourdistrict/board/policies/. Seattle Public Schools:http://www.seattleschools.org/area/policies/index.dxml.


52/133

40programs such as Safe Routes to

kramer kcffi final 052909

Documents