School Nutrition Professional Development: Building Stronger Teams - Why Leadership, Trust, and Connection Matter

A new school year brings plenty of excitement - but it can also bring uncertainty.

New employees join the team. Longtime staff members retire. Responsibilities shift. Regulations change.

Departments may be understaffed. And everyone arrives in August knowing they need enough energy to make it all the way through June.

For school nutrition professionals and other education teams, technical knowledge is only part of what makes a successful year. The people doing the work need to feel connected, supported, and prepared to navigate change together.

On a recent episode of Nutrismart SNAX, Maureen Pisanick sat down with Heather Lee of Effective

Leadership Academy (ELA) to discuss how professional development can help school teams strengthen relationships, reconnect with their purpose, and build the trust necessary to succeed.

Why School Nutrition Professional Development Matters

School nutrition professional development in schools often focuses on what employees need to know: new regulations, procedures, technology, safety requirements, menu changes, or operational expectations.

Those topics are important. But Heather points out that professional development can also create something people rarely give themselves during a busy school year: time to focus on themselves.

Employees may be balancing work, families, caregiving responsibilities, second jobs, and the constant pace of change. That creates stress—and there aren't always opportunities to stop and think about personal growth, wellness, or how effectively a team is working together.

ELA's approach creates space for employees to rejuvenate, reconnect, and develop skills around areas such as mindfulness, work-life balance, positivity, communication, trust, and teamwork.

And that can be especially valuable in school nutrition, where teams frequently have to adapt quickly to staffing shortages, absences, new employees, changing requirements, and the everyday unpredictability of feeding students.

Reconnect With Your "Why"

People who choose careers in education and school nutrition often care deeply about their work.

That passion is an incredible strength - but it can also contribute to burnout.

As Heather explained during the conversation, when people "carry their heart on their sleeve," it becomes easy to pour everything they have into their work. Professional development can provide an opportunity to step away from the daily checklist and reconnect with a bigger question:

Why did I choose to do this work in the first place?

For school nutrition professionals, the answer goes far beyond preparing breakfast or lunch.

It's about nourishing students. It's about creating a welcoming cafeteria. It's about making sure a child has access to food that helps them learn. It's about supporting families and creating healthier school communities.

When employees reconnect with that purpose, the work can begin to feel different.

Leaders Should Be Participants, Not Just Presenters

One of Maureen's biggest takeaways from having ELA work directly with the Pisanick Partners team was the value of participating alongside employees.

Leaders frequently spend professional development days at the front of the room.

They develop the agenda. They create the presentation. They explain the strategy. They tell everyone what comes next.

But what happens when the leader sits down with the team instead?

During Pisanick Partners' own professional development experience with ELA, Maureen participated in the activities rather than facilitating them. That created an opportunity to see her team from a different perspective—and discover things she might not have recognized while standing at the front of the room.

There is power in allowing someone else to lead while you become a student alongside your employees.

It can make vulnerability safer. It can flatten some of the hierarchy in the room. And it reminds everyone that professional growth isn't limited to a particular title.

Leaders are learning, too.

Strong Teams Require Trust

Technical skills can help employees perform their jobs.

Trust helps them perform those jobs together.

Teams inevitably experience difficult days. Someone calls off. A delivery doesn't arrive. A piece of equipment breaks. A new employee is still learning. A major deadline is approaching.

Those are the moments when relationships matter.

Do employees trust one another enough to ask for help?

Can they communicate when they're overwhelmed?

Can someone acknowledge a mistake without immediately becoming defensive?

Can employees disagree without damaging their working relationships?

Building that type of culture doesn't happen through a single presentation. It develops when teams intentionally spend time understanding one another.

That includes recognizing that people communicate differently.

A message that seems perfectly clear to one person might feel abrupt or confusing to someone else.

Understanding different personalities and communication styles can reduce unnecessary friction and help employees work together more effectively.

Get People Out of Their Silos

There's another opportunity for schools to think differently about professional development.

Instead of always training departments separately, consider creating opportunities for different groups within the school community to learn together.

Teachers.

Administrators.

School nutrition professionals.

Custodians.

Bus drivers.

Support staff.

These employees may work in the same building every day without having many opportunities to actually get to know one another.

ELA has facilitated professional development ranging from small teams of only a few employees to district-wide initiatives involving hundreds of people. Heather described one district experience that brought together teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and school nutrition employees, creating opportunities for connection across roles that can otherwise feel siloed.

That's important because every one of those employees contributes to the student experience.

When departments begin seeing themselves as one school community instead of separate operational units, collaboration becomes easier.

Effective Professional Development Isn't One-Size-Fits-All

Sometimes a team simply needs an energetic hour together to kick off the school year.

Another team may need several sessions addressing deeper challenges with communication or trust.

That's why Heather emphasized the importance of understanding the actual need before determining the training.

ELA customizes its professional development by listening to an organization's pain points, asking questions, and identifying what may be underneath the issue. Programming can range from fun team-building sessions to deeper work designed to rebuild trust and reconnect employees.

The lesson for school leaders is important:

Don't start by asking, "What presentation should we give?"

Start by asking:

"What does our team need right now?"

Those are two very different questions.

Make Professional Development Something People Experience

We've probably all attended professional development where we sat in a chair, watched slides, took a few notes, and moved on.

It doesn't have to look that way.

One of the things Maureen highlighted about ELA's approach is its interactivity. Participants aren't simply watching a PowerPoint presentation. They're moving, engaging, laughing, talking, reflecting, and learning from one another.

Heather describes it simply: you laugh a lot and learn a lot.

That combination can create meaningful moments of vulnerability without making professional development feel heavy.

And no, despite the classic team-building stereotype, ELA isn't going to make everyone do trust falls.

Start the School Year by Investing in Your People

Schools invest significant time teaching employees how to perform their jobs.

It's equally important to invest in helping them become stronger teams.

Before filling every professional development day with technical content, consider reserving some time for the people who will be responsible for carrying that knowledge forward.

Give employees an opportunity to reconnect with their purpose.

Help them understand one another.

Build communication.

Strengthen trust.

Create relationships across departments.

And give leaders permission to sit down, participate, and learn alongside everyone else.

Because innovation doesn't begin with a new program, recipe, piece of equipment, or initiative.

It begins with people who trust one another enough to try something new together.

As Heather's experience demonstrates, professional development can be customized for anything from a small departmental team to an entire school district. The goal isn't simply to leave employees with more information. It's to help them return to their work more connected, energized, and prepared to support one another.

And for school nutrition teams working every day to nourish students and support healthy school communities, that's an investment worth making.

To hear the full conversation with Jason and explore more insights like these, tune into the latest episode by searching for NutriSmart SNAX podcast your favorite podcast platform or watch the Episode on YouTube.