The national, non-profit School Nutrition Association (SNA) has named Eric Span, Director Nutrition Services for Sweetwater Union High School District, California, the Western region Director of the Year. The award recognizes the extraordinary contributions of school nutrition directors who manage effective school meal programs providing healthy, appetizing meals to students.

Eric Span is credited with revamping and updating menus in the school district to offer higher quality ingredients and improve nutrition. Span instituted a scratch cooked meal program by training all staff on knife skills, grill usage, recipes, culinary procedures and food safety standards. He successfully incorporated student, staff and parent input into the program. Parents are encouraged to visit cafeterias, observe meal prep, taste test new menu options and participate in annual back-to-school nights providing information on meals, benefit applications and nutrition regulations.

Span maintains productive relationships with students by supporting the creation of student advisory boards. Members present menu ideas to area supervisors and are tasked with recruiting peers for taste tests and pop-up educational events. The students are encouraged to provide positive and negative feedback on menu items or service-related issues. With direct marketing to students, the efforts he led increased meal counts 30 percent in the first year of implementation.

Span also began a successful farm-to-school program by partnering with an engineering program at a district high school. The program began with 400 chickens, providing eggs for a variety of menu options, including protein boxes and Pho noodle bowls. Excess eggs were sold to teachers and community members to help finance the growth of the farm project, which included adding fruit trees on school campuses for students and staff to pick from. The efforts garnered positive media attention and awareness among local policy makers.

Community involvement is important to Span. He often supports local organizations focused on improving health outcomes for youth and helped bring activities into the school district to expand efforts to reach more families and students. He is also involved in local efforts to start community gardens and supports food banks by providing fruits and vegetables to these organizations.

His leadership is further demonstrated by efforts to train site and area supervisors in financial management, staffing and procurement, and in soft skills such as interacting with site administrators and school board members. Span also created a culinary training program for 250 staff members, which included butchering, portioning and training on processing whole vegetables. The training has increased morale and employee retention.

Span served as Public Policy and Legislative Committee Chair for the California School Nutrition Association (CalSNA) and a board member for the Chef Ann Foundation. He led efforts to restart a CalSNA chapter that had been dormant for two years and can be seen working with his staff to increase participation in the Association. Span was recently elected to the national SNA Board of Directors and will begin his term of service in July 2024.

The Director of the Year Award was created to recognize school nutrition directors who exhibit an extraordinary commitment to their school meal programs. The directors are responsible for maintaining the quality of the program through student interaction, menu planning and a commitment to serving nutritious, tasty and well-balanced school meals. Through effective oversight of all aspects of food service operations, including budgeting, staffing, training, marketing and community outreach, school nutrition directors ensure the overall success of school meal programs.

Span was announced as the Western region Director of the Year during an online awards ceremony on April 30 in advance of School Lunch Hero Day, celebrated on May 3, 2024, to honor all of America’s dedicated school nutrition professionals. The accomplishments of Span and all SNA award winners will also be highlighted in a special digital publication and promoted in SNA’s annual Hero Day social media campaign on Facebook.com/TrayTalk and TrayTalk.org.