Four Cincinnati-area school districts are part of a pilot project to teach children about where the food they eat at school each day is grown and to offer locally sourced menus. Districts participating in Feed Our Future's Local Menu Takeover initiative, part of Farm to School Month, will serve four meal concepts at any school in the district and pick from two breakfasts, three entrees and two desserts that include locally grown and produced products such as apples.

Two North Dakota middle-schoolers spoke out against their school's newly adopted assigned lunchroom seating by conducting surveys and composing essays to persuade administrators to let students sit where they want. While the seating chart is still in effect for younger students, Principal Anthony Vandal was persuaded by the students' arguments to drop the seat assignments for eighth-graders.

Students in roughly one-quarter of US states now have the option of taking mental health days, with five more states considering adopting the policy. While response to the concept is generally favorable, concerns have been raised about students who would be home alone during a vulnerable time.

Research published in the journal Substance Use and Abuse involving survey data on 536,291 US teens found that substance abuse was diminishing, except for an uptick in cannabis use and vaping, while nicotine vaping increased the most among highly social and engaged groups that were less supervised. "While some of the results aligned with expectations (like low supervision or high time with peers contributing to higher substance use), it was surprising to see that working a paid job was a risk factor for substance use as well," said data analyst Noah Kreski.

Educating yourself to notice microaggressions against co-workers, speaking up about them and reaching out to offer support can go a long way toward creating a culture of inclusion, write Tufts University School of Medicine assistant professor Jennifer Kim and IMD Business School professor Alyson Meister. "While organizations must address microaggressions at a systemic level, it's critical that targets of microaggressions not be left alone to deal with the accumulating effects of these slights," they write.

The best leaders are those who always seek to learn more from their customers and their employees so they can develop both their teamwork skills and knowledge on how to handle conflicts and challenges, writes Kevin Kehoe, co-founder of Aspire Software. "Developing teamwork is especially important for young companies as roles are often blurred, systems are absent and deep relationships have yet to be established," Kehoe writes.

There is still time to tell us how you'll be celebrating Peace, Love & School Lunch during National School Lunch Week. Enter the #NSLW22 Contest by this Friday -- October 7 -- and you will automatically be entered in a drawing for one of three $50 SNA Shop Gift Cards to promote your program. Enter the contest.