Schools in the Falls Church High School pyramid have voluntarily enrolled in the Fairfax County Health Department’s new program, Safety Through Actively Managing Practices (STAMP), for food service operations that meet a set of standards developed by the department.

STAMP requires that food service operations adopt a proactive approach to reduce foodborne illness risk factors through the use of Active Managerial Control (AMC). AMC includes having strong written policies, recurring employee trainings, and various monitoring activities such as the use of temperature logs. STAMP enrollees demonstrate AMC through a rigorous evaluation of their records and processes and by maintaining high performance on inspections.

The Health Department modeled the standards for STAMP after best practices outlined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the FDA Food Code, the national model for food service sanitation standards.