Sponsors (3)
The bill promotes student health, nutrition education, and hands-on learning through expanded PE, chronic-disease instruction, and school gardens with federal guidance and transparency—but it shifts costs, administrative/reporting burdens, and some operational risks onto schools, LEAs, taxpayers, and school health staff.
Students (K–12) will receive expanded nutrition education and structured physical education, improving diet and activity habits and reducing obesity and chronic disease risk.
Students and schools will gain hands-on learning, access to fresh produce, and potential food-cost savings through school and community gardens, supported by published evidence-based guidance that raises success rates and reduces trial-and-error costs.
Clarifying these activities under the ESEA and publicly sharing best practices enables districts to deploy federal education funds for health-related programs and increases transparency so parents and communities can replicate successful models.
Schools and local districts will face added costs (staff, training, materials, garden setup and maintenance) to implement nutrition programs, structured PE, and gardens, which may strain local budgets if federal funds are limited.
Requiring school nurses or nurse practitioners to lead chronic disease instruction could divert clinical staff time from medical duties unless additional staffing is provided, reducing available healthcare capacity for students.
Collecting, analyzing, and publishing garden best-practices data will impose administrative costs on the Department of Education (borne by taxpayers) and create reporting burdens for LEAs that divert staff time from other tasks.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Permits certain federal education funds to be used for nutrition/physical education and for developing and maintaining school or community gardens, and requires DOE to publish garden best practices.
Introduced September 10, 2025 by Shontel M. Brown · Last progress September 10, 2025
Amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to explicitly allow use of certain federal school funds for nutrition education, structured physical education led by qualified health professionals, chronic disease management instruction, and the development and maintenance of school or community gardens. It also directs the Department of Education to collect information from local education agencies that use these funds for gardens, identify best practices from that information, and publish and regularly update those best practices on a public website.