School are back in session for the 2021-2022 school year and some restrictions have been lifted for COVID, but the school system still is encouraging virtual programming rather than in person classes for speaker not employed by the school system due to Rowan County still having higher than state average COVID numbers. Rowan County Kentucky State University SNAP-Ed has been partnering with the elementary schools to provide nutrition and during the previous school year Organwise Virtual Programming was successfully used in two of the elementary schools. 

McBrayer Elementary and Tilden Hogge Elementary Schools want to continue the virtual programming with Rowan SNAP-ED again during this school year as evaluation of last year’s programs showed it to be effective with the youths showing improvement in their abilities to choose foods according to Federal Dietary Recommendation or gained knowledge.

The virtual Organwise program will be paid for by the SNAP-Ed program. Memo of Understanding and purchasing is being requisitioned to get the program implemented in the school system sooner this year. The schools again have requested just the virtual program not the workbooks as class times are short and workbook monitoring takes longer. Along with the virtual classes SNAP-Ed will do parent letters that go along with the lesson for each grade for the six lessons. SNAP-Ed is looking forward to another successful year with the two elementary schools and revisions will be made if COVID restrictions change during the school year. Evaluation of the program will be reported on at the completion of the lessons using the appropriate pre and posttest for each grade.