Final Report (3.75 MB)
Team Nutrition Training Grants play an important role in helping state agencies deliver training and nutrition education that supports the USDA child nutrition programs. In 2019, USDA’s Team Nutrition awarded a training grant to the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to implement E-STAR. E-STAR stands for Enhanced Strategies, Training, Action Plans, and Resources. It is a two-year program that offers intensive training for school nutrition managers and ongoing support from a mentor to help managers develop and implement action plans to improve both meal quality and student perception of meal quality.
MDE implemented E-STAR during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years when the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency was in effect.1 The E-STAR evaluation didn’t directly assess the impacts of the pandemic,2 but it did assess barriers to program engagement, which included pandemic-related challenges.
The E-STAR evaluation centered around understanding the extent to which MDE was able to implement key program components as intended, the extent to which managers were actively engaged in the program, and facilitators of and barriers to implementation and engagement.
Key Findings
- MDE successfully implemented all E-STAR program components, indicating that the program is feasible to implement as intended.
- It was challenging for managers to maintain consistent engagement throughout the two-year ESTAR implementation period. Managers most often cited barriers related to capacity limitations, such as a general lack of time, competing job responsibilities, being understaffed, staff turnover, scheduling conflicts, second jobs, family obligations, health issues, limited experience in their role, and limited experience using technology.
- Managers valued the individualized support their mentors provided, and the mentorship component of E-STAR was the most frequently cited engagement facilitator. Other engagement facilitators included internal motivation, the professional development provided by the program, and the community of practice created by MDE.
1 For more information, please visit https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/covid-19-public-health-emergency/index.html.
2 The following studies were designed to evaluate COVID-19 pandemic challenges https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/cn/pandemic-operations-march-sept-2020 and https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/cn/pandemic-operations-july2020-dec2021.