Earlier this week, five food service staff members from the Harwood Unified School District spent a day participating in a Mediterranean cooking class where they prepared and tasted some new dishes for the district’s students this fall.

They were introduced to a melon-mint salad with watermelon and cantaloupe with mint dressing. They made baba ganoush, a traditional eggplant dish, and hummus, which is already a staple in HUUSD kitchens. They made tzatziki, a dish made from scratch with Greek yogurt and cucumber, along with chicken sharma and kofka chicken meatballs.

“It was a really great class,” said Erika Dolan, co-director of school meals and nutrition at HUUSD.

“When we read the recipe for the meatballs, we initially had some concerns because it is made with ground chicken, which we don’t normally buy,” Dolan said, noting that the food is delicious and the district is able to source ground chicken.

This week’s class is part of the annual professional development training that school staff attend and is offered with federal funding through the Vermont Agency of Education’s Child Nutrition Program.

Dolan said that in addition to the Mediterranean cooking classes, AOE also offered other knife skills classes and a fish preparation class that her employees did not attend but that were held at Harwood Union.

There are other types of professional development opportunities aimed at specific employees, including Dolan and her colleagues, that involve paperwork and reporting, among other things. This week, for example, Dolan took a class on wellness. She was also one of three panelists this week who presented information on grants from local initiatives. HUUSD was recently recognized as one of the school districts in Vermont honored for (and receiving grants for) purchasing and using local food.

Dolan said the training for her staff promotes networking and also gives people from other school districts the opportunity to share recipes, tips and tools that make school meals more delicious and help kitchens run more smoothly.

“This also helps our employees learn that they are not working in isolation from one another, but rather see the bigger picture and feel more involved,” said Dolan.

“We are constantly learning. Our employees love it. It empowers them and gives them more tools to do their job, which automatically impacts the children. Taking part in training confirms their professionalism. It’s a job. They’re not just cafeteria ladies,” Dolan added.