K-12 Director Jessica Shelly Earns Gold Plate Award

Jessica Shelly, director, student dining services at Cincinnati Public Schools, received the 2023 Gold Plate Award from the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association at the close of its 69th Annual Gold & Silver Plate Awards Celebration on Saturday. Shelly was nominated in the “Elementary & Secondary Schools” category by P&G Professional and Nestle Professional and selected from the nine honorees who took home 2023 Silver Plate awards.

Shelly is responsible for overseeing the service of over 60,000 meals each day at 67 schools. According to the release, she is a trailblazer in the area of school nutrition with unique implementations such as salad bars and cultural spice stations in every school, reimbursable meal vending machines, a clean label initiative, and a local, small business, minority-owned purchasing focus.

Shelly was lauded at the awards ceremony by her mentor, COO of Cincinnati Public Schools Chris Burkhardt, who told the attending crowd that Shelly “has right-sized, trained, led, coached, strategized, and innovated to become one of the most respected K-12 directors in the country. But that is not why she is here tonight. She has an unwavering focus on improving outcomes for students in and out of the classroom. Period.”