Five Steps for Coordinating Your School Program:
1. Work with your school contacts to determine and document what types of lessons Nurture will teach. Decisions should be based on school resources, Nurture budget, and volunteer availability. You will ultimately create a Curriculum Overview chart to show which lessons will be taught when. The Curriculum Overview should be created with a sense for how much time allocated for each class/touch point. Work with the school contacts to ensure that the Curriculum Overview is set up in a way so that each lesson reinforces prior lessons. Reinforcement methods include behavior logs, discussions of at- home activities, prior lesson Q&A time, and following lessons with supporting activities. When you have your dates on your Curriculum Overview, make sure that these dates get included on your chapter's calendar.
2. Determine if any other components of the program beyond lessons are desired. For example, an information campaign could include a monthly article for the school newsletter, after school programming could be scheduled for specific groups, or in person parent education might be desired. These events take special preparation beyond the in-school lesson. Also, if you are serving food as any part of the program, speak with the principal, teachers, food services staff and other consitutents (e.g. wellness committe) to ensure that your serving station is safe and sanitary.
3. Before you start your lessons, your pre-program evalation should be conducted. Determine how and when the assessment tools will be administered.
4. Be ready for your post-program evaluation. Steven Covey says, "begin with the end in mind". You must have a plan for how you will evaluate the program, student learning, and behavior change.
5. Staff your program with trained teachers and volunteers, and have fun! Click here for an example volunteer chart. Coordinate with volunteer coordination committee on this task. Prior to each lesson:
-distribute all lesson materials and supplies to Nurture teachers and your school contacts. When helpful, include tips on how to use these in your school environment.
-distribute a schedule of who will be teaching what days and times.
-ensure all visual aids, handouts, student rewards, and teacher evaluations are created and ready for use. If the school is producing these, clarify what you need from them.
-schedule the purchase of any food and supplies required for the recipes
-obtain any required cooking equipment. Contact your Regional Director for more information.
-ensure that each volunteer has signed a liability waiver.
-if preparing and sampling recipes, make sure each participant has signed a liability waiver
