Decorah Community Schools

Connecting kids to their food

Decorah is a Food & Fitness School.  This page highlights some of their projects and activities.

Videos from Decorah schools:

Cooking School for School Cooks - Stir Fry

(9/26/11) Oelwsin school food service staff are sharpening their cooking skills by attending 5th Season Workshops hosted by the Northeast Iowa Food & Fitness Initiative Farm to School program.  Guest Chef Jason Skarin from Luther Collage led a stir-fry workshop at Decorah Middle School.  Food service staff prepared and froze stir-fry vegetables from the school garden and local farmers. Read more.

Cross-Age Teaching in Decorah Schools

Not too long ago, a group of second grade students in Decorah could not answer the following question: "What sound does the animal make, that gives us hamburger?"

It may be hard to believe this could happen in a town surrounded by farms and rooted in rural cultural traditions; but it's a measure of how far people -- even people living in largely rural areas -- have moved away from knowing the sources of the food they eat. That's changing, though -- thanks to the efforts of an organization committed to bringing, in essence, the farm back to the schools.  Read more.

Decorah Students talk about work for school wellness team

Last year Decorah school administration started getting folks together to form a Decorah School Wellness team, encouraged by the Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative (FFI). The plan was to get people from throughout the community working toward a healthier environment in the schools -- and a key component of that plan involved getting students on board. Several months later, three students -- Sam Iverson, Shelby Varney and Liz Hovden -- are the youngest members of the school wellness team. Read more about their involvement.

Good Food in Decorah Schools

Working with FFI, Gina Holthaus, a health and physical education teacher for Decorah schools, along with Decorah Schools Superintendent Mike Haluska, last November formed the Decorah School Wellness Team -- a community wide committee of health care and nutrition professionals, educators, parents and students in Decorah looking at ways to increase school wellness.  Read more.

School cooks back to school

Decorah cooks went back to school early this year to sharpen their cooking skills by attending a 5th Season Workshop hosted by the Northeast Iowa Food & Fitness Initiative Farm to School program.   Guest chef and author, Monique Hooker from De Soto, Wisconsin showed food service workers how to prepare and store fresh local produce to be used throughout the school year by creating a vegetable dish called ratatouille.  (Read more)

School Food Service Workers Complete ServSafe Training

School food service employees from five school districts participated in a day-long food safety in-service taught by Iowa State University Extension specialists Cindy Baumgartner and Jill Weber.  The training was part of the Farm to School project in northeast Iowa.  ServSafe® is a program of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation.  Participants learned about prevention, regulatory requirements, and how to improve food quality. (Read more)