On September 4, 2019, the Food and Nutrition Service awarded approximately $2.5 million in Fiscal Year 2019 Team Nutrition Training Grants for the E-STAR Training Program. This 4-year grant supports state agency implementation of a job-skills training program focused on addressing identified state and local needs pertaining to the quality of school meals.

The Team Nutrition E-STAR Training Grant provides funding for a state to train school nutrition managers using the E-STAR training program, an enhanced version of the Institute for Child Nutrition’s STAR (School Nutrition Strategies, Training, Action Plans, and Resources) training program that focuses on school meal quality. The E-STAR training is currently only available under this grant.

Recipient of the Fiscal Year 2019 Team Nutrition E-STAR Training Grant:

Michigan Department of Education

The Michigan Department of Education will implement the Institute of Child Nutrition’s E-STAR Training Program, which assists school nutrition managers in goal setting and implementing an action plan with strategies to improve school meal quality and students’ perception of school meal quality. Through E-STAR, Michigan will provide extensive professional development training for school nutrition professionals and award sub-grants to School Food Authorities to implement strategies that improve meal quality. This comprehensive training program includes face-to-face training, online learning, and mentoring for over 60 school nutrition managers. Managers will in turn provide training to their frontline staff to support the implementation of strategies to improve meal quality at the school level. Evaluation activities associated with this grant include an FNS evaluation of the E-STAR training program and a Michigan-led evaluation of school implementation of meal quality improvement action plans.

For More Information

• Visit Grants.gov
• Visit the Team Nutrition Training Grants page
• Contact Team Nutrition at TeamNutrition@USDA.gov