Whole-School Teams

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Whole School Teams • Farm to School Action Planning • Coaching • Skill Building • Peer Networking

The Northeast Farm to School Institute Model

Teams who apply to attend the Northeast Farm to School Institute must include four to seven members who represent diverse identities and roles across the school. Required roles on all teams include administrators, teachers, and nutrition/food service staff. Additional team members can include farmers, community partners, school nurses, afterschool and other school staff, parents, students, and school board members. Team diversity is essential for creating a realistic action plan for a farm to school program that aligns with a school’s needs and culture and creates lasting change.

✔ Whole-School Teams Checklist

  • Team Size: Typically four to seven members, representing diverse identities and roles.

  • Required Team Roles:

    • Administrators and teachers representing the classroom

    • Nutrition/food service staff representing the cafeteria

    • Partners from the community representing diverse community members

  • Additional Team Roles: Farmers, school nurses, afterschool and other school staff, parents, students, and school board members may be included

Connection to the Professional Learning Philosophy

The Northeast Farm to School Institute's approach to whole-school teams aligns with key elements of the professional learning philosophy:

  • Diversity within teams fosters equity by ensuring inclusive perspectives and representation. Including input from underrepresented groups promotes consideration of all students' needs.

  • Cross-departmental collaboration encourages systems thinking across school or program roles. Working together builds understanding of and empathy for each team member's contexts and connections between the 3Cs in the team’s school community.

  • Shared leadership develops collective agency and efficacy to drive change. Teams gain confidence in their ability to create positive impacts together.

  • Relationships between team members provide essential support and motivation to persist despite challenges. A sense of community enhances resilience.

By bringing together diverse stakeholders and facilitating collaboration, whole-school teams align with the philosophy's emphasis on equity, relationships, agency, and contexts to create impactful professional learning experiences.

Adaptations & Variations

Questions to Consider

  • What is the scale of change in your system? How can you ensure that the Institute will impact the most people (i.e., in some states, decisions around curriculum, cafeterias, and funding are made at the district level so a district team might be most appropriate)?

  • How will you determine readiness for your Institute (i.e., is this your first introduction to farm to school or are you deepening your practice)? How might you utilize the Farm to School Rubric to understand and determine readiness?

  • How will you recruit teams using an equity-centered approach?

  • What adaptations will be necessary to make your Institute relevant to contexts such as different grade levels (e.g., early childhood, elementary school, middle school, high school), community conditions, and peer networking?

An Institute team’s composition will depend on the needs and goals of the participating school. No two whole-school teams are exactly the same. In fact, teams don’t have to be school based. Teams can come from school districts and early childhood programs. 


1. District-Level Teams

The majority of teams come from individual schools, but sometimes a district-level team makes the most sense. 

Example from the Field: The Georgia Farm to School Institute worked with district-level teams rather than individual schools because farm to school is coordinated through school districts in their state. Having district-level representation on teams allowed for more efficient decision-making and policy changes across each district. However, team members found connecting classrooms and cafeterias across an entire district to be challenging. There was also less buy-in from individual schools that lacked direct representation on a team.

Pros & Cons: 

  • Pros: Working with district-level teams enables alignment with existing farm to school coordination structures already in place for the host organization, in this case, Georgia Organics. District-level teams can also make decisions that will have a broader impact. 

  • Cons: Cross-district collaboration can be difficult and engagement may be lower from  schools that don’t have representation on the team.

2. Early Childhood Teams

While the Northeast Farm to School Institute is designed with school and district teams in mind, accommodations can be made to facilitate successful participation by early childhood teams.

Example from the Field: The Northeast Farm to School Institute includes early childhood teams by making adjustments to serve their distinct needs. For example, Institute staff use inclusive language about early childhood education roles in outreach and promotion so participants can see how they fit in. Because early childhood centers are open in summer, financial support is provided through covered fees and scholarships to improve access and secure substitutes. Team size and composition are also flexible to avoid overburdening small early childhood center staff. Having at least two early childhood-focused teams is recommended to promote peer networking and support.


Pros & Cons:

  • Pros: Hosting early childhood teams increases Institute access to a greater pool of participants and ensures a diversity of viewpoints and experiences among participants. Participation of early childhood teams also helps extend the benefits of farm to school to young children at a critical developmental stage. 

  • Cons: Accommodating early childhood teams requires additional coordination and planning to meet their distinct needs, which can increase the investment of resources and expertise. It can also be a challenge to balance early childhood and school needs in a combined Institute.


3. Implementation Awards/Follow-up Grants

Providing implementation awards and follow-up grants to participating teams can give teams an extra boost to get their action plans up and running and keep their momentum going.

Example from the Field: In New York, each Institute team receives a $5,000 implementation award. Teams use the awards flexibly to kickstart priorities from their action plans like securing materials, facilitating staff time, and hiring consultants. At the end of the year, Farm to Institution New York State/American Farmland Trust surveys teams on how they used their awards. These funds not only catalyze immediate action but also encourage teams to think long-term about sustainability once the seed money is spent.

Pros & Cons:

  • Pros: Implementation awards and follow-up grants can incentivize teams to participate in the Institute and provide a catalyst to get their program off the ground. Teams who participate in the Institute are also well positioned to make effective use of these funds. 

  • Cons: It is an added cost to provide awards or grants to all participating teams. However, funds can come from other sources such as state- and federal-level grant programs.

Lessons Learned: Helpful advice for recruiting and supporting whole-school teams at your Institute

  • For their first Institute, many states started small with a limited number of teams. This approach aligned with their existing capacity, experience, resources, and budget. It created a foundation for potentially expanding over time.

  • School staffing and plans are ever-changing. Have a contingency plan (e.g. a waitlist) in place to accommodate changes in the number of participating teams and team members.  

  • Encourage district teams to initially focus on one or two schools for a more manageable and targeted approach before expanding districtwide. 

  • Clearly communicate with Institute teams from early on about their year-long commitment to the program once they sign up. This leaves ample time for teams to make adjustments before they kick start their Institute experience.

  • Think outside the box when recruiting teams for your Institute. Consider aligning recruitment with other programs such as farm to school grants and school garden networks to identify potential teams.

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