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Training and Hiring Requirements
Farm To School Sub-Grant Application Requirements And How To Handle Supply Chain Challenges.
New Director Requirements
Directors, hired on or after July 1, 2015, are required to meet minimum education and work experience standards. Directors hired prior to July 1, 2015 are grandfathered in.
Annual Training Requirements
The USDA established minimum annual training requirements for school nutrition professionals who manage and operate the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs.
Training Resources & Tools:
- Key Areas and Learning Objective Codes
- CDE Professional Standards Training Tracker
- USDA Professional Standards Training Tracker 2.0
All training must be tracked on a training tracker with the key area and learning objective codes.
- Food Service Directors: 12 hours
- Managers: 10 hours
- Full-Time Staff (> 20 hours per week): 6 hours
- Part-Time Staff (< 20 hours per week): 4 hours
Training Tracker Tools are available from CDE and USDA.
School Nutrition Hiring Tools
Recruiting Tools:
A critical step in filling vacancies is to market open positions and attract qualified candidates. The School Nutrition Association has created a hiring toolkit which includes hiring videos, animated graphics, and social media posts all designed to help promote open positions.
Work in School Nutrition!
In addition to SNA resources, consider using CDE's customizable Why Work in School Nutrition flyers. These flyers can be posted on websites, social media, and printed to share at hiring and recruiting events, career fairs, or posted around the community at common gathering spaces like coffee shops and libraries. There are many reasons to work in school nutrition including:
- Meaningful work
- Summers, weekends, and holidays off
- Set schedule
- Job security
- Health insurance & benefits
- Working the same hours as when kids are in school
- Greeley-Evans School District 6 hires student workers. View a recent student worker job posting.
- St. Vrain Valley School District highlights school nutrition benefits with testimonials on an easily navigated website. View St. Vrain Valley Nutrition opportunities.
Volunteers and Interns:
Volunteers and interns can be extremely helpful in filling gaps while recruiting for open positions. Review your district's policies on volunteers before hiring and follow the steps below:
- Create a school nutrition volunteer guide to specify standards for your program. The Lunch Box created a Sample Volunteer Guide to start.
- Invite college volunteers or other community members into the kitchen if there is not a strong parent/guardian presence available.
- Leverage dietetic internship rotations.
- At the district level, dietetic interns can support planning special dietary menus, conduct outreach and marketing efforts, and plan special events. At meal sites, interns can help plan, prepare and serve meals.
- View the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' internship program directory
- USDA Overcoming Staffing Shortages in School Food Service webinar and Powerpoint slides
- Become a Colorado Employment First workfare site to provide SNAP recipients an opportunity to obtain work experience. View more information about Colorado Employment First.
Additional Training and Hiring Resources
- Visit USDA Professional Standards Training Database
- Visit School Nutrition Association Professional Standards Hub
- View CDE Professional Development Opportunities
Questions? Identify Your Program Point of Contact
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