1. Food is a right.
All children deserve access to healthy, consistent, and nutritious food all the time — especially while they are in school. 

2. Grown-ups set the tone.
Adults are responsible for fostering a mealtime atmosphere that allows students to create positive lifelong eating habits at the table. 

3. Mealtime is social.
The table is a place to develop skills: social, environmental, and educational. Kids learn to eat by watching others, especially grown-ups. Sharing a meal and conversation builds a child’s confidence and reinforces the pleasure they find in food and mealtime. 

4. Kids are in charge of their eating.
Like any new skill, each child learns eating habits bit by bit, at their own pace. They will develop relationships with new foods on their own timeline. Kids possess the agency to choose how much and what to eat at a meal. 

5. Quality is our guiding principle.
PataSchool is committed to quality through student choice, fresh ingredients, and sustainability. 

6. Meals are planned in community.
Parents, students, and staff members have a regular opportunity to provide input on menus and the school mealtime experience: this is our commitment to radical hospitality. 

Modeled after Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility