Meet the Principal Farmer (yes, that's a real job!)

Today we’ll meet a principal who rides a horse to school, runs a campus with peacocks, emus, and tortoises, and believes learning should start with wonder. Joined by May Tsupros—self‑described “fire starter” and connector extraordinaire. We talk about agriculture as the great equalizer, disrupting broken systems, and what happens when the right people collide in a conference hallway. Equal parts laughter, philosophy, and farm dirt, this conversation will have you rethinking what school can look like when we let kids wander, adults listen, and food bring us together.

Transcript

Meet the Principal Farmer (yes, that’s a real job)

Patrick and May

Today we’ll meet a principal who rides a horse to school, runs a campus with peacocks, emus, and tortoises, and believes learning should start with wonder. Joined by May Tsupros—self‑described “fire starter” and connector extraordinaire. We talk about agriculture as the great equalizer, disrupting broken systems, and what happens when the right people collide in a conference hallway. Equal parts laughter, philosophy, and farm dirt, this conversation will have you rethinking what school can look like when we let kids wander, adults listen, and food bring us together.

00:00:04 Michelle

Welcome to the Farm to School Podcast, where you'll hear stories of how you thrive and farmers prosper, when we learn how to grow, cook, and eat delicious, nutritious local foods in schools across the country.

00:00:13 Rick

And the world. Hi, everybody. We're your hosts, I'm Rick.

00:00:16 Michelle

Hey, and I'm Michelle. I learned a new term, a title. Imagine this job title: Principal Farmer.

00:00:24 Rick

And that's not the principal meaning the main person, the principal meaning principal of the elementary school.

00:00:30 Michelle

I met someone who rides a horse to their school where they're the principal. And you're so you're going to meet Patrick and May, our dear friend from Michigan State University.

00:00:42 Rick

And Patrick is from Chattahoochee Hills Charter School.

00:00:48 Rick

That's kind of a tongue twister. Chattahoochee Hills Charter School in Atlanta.

00:00:52 Michelle

Yes. Atlanta, Georgia.

00:00:54 Rick

And Patrick's written a couple of books. He has a kid's book, a children's book called Principal Farmer Has a Farm and Farming by Faith by the Principal Farmer. So we'll put links to those in the show notes.

00:01:07 Michelle

That's what I love about Farm to School. It's so innovative. And you know, I still remember the days when we made the term up, Farm to School and what it meant. And it's still constantly evolving.

00:01:19 Rick

It is. And probably the biggest thing I get about farm to school is like, sometimes it's not a school. So it might be early childhood education, ECE, and it might be a daycare, or it might be a summer camp. And so we call farm to school… I have to keep coming back to that farm to child nutrition program sometimes, but farm to school is kind of a broad layman's term for everything about teaching kids about where their food comes from.

00:01:49 Michelle

Well, and it's not, and also we get like, it's not a farm.

00:01:53 Rick

Right. What's a farm? What's a school? That's what makes our job interesting.

00:01:59 Michelle

Really amazing. Really, it's like earth to everyone. And, you know, we're just, we're constantly defining and redefining what it means. But definitions aside, the real thing that matters is amazing work with students and producers and each other.

00:02:18 Rick

I always liken it to this. I'm at an airport and somebody says, what do you do for a living? I go, oh, I'm a farm to school coordinator. Farm to what? You know, like school gardens. And they go, we have, there's gardens at school. So you have to kind of explain everything. But it's okay. The term's here to stay.

00:02:34 Michelle

It's terms here to stay. And in part, because we have a podcast named Farm to School for no other reason.

00:02:40 Rick

For that reason.

00:02:41 Michelle

I'm just kidding. I'm actually joking. That we have broached this conversation not infrequently, but we had a meeting, we call, with the Department of Education and others, and we're like, do we need a rebrand? Do we need to revisit this? And the consensus is no. Like, just keep going and do awesome work.

00:02:58 Rick

Just deal with it, people. It's farm to school. Okay. All right.

00:03:03 Michelle

We actually have an episode called What is Farm to School? It's one of the first ones we did.

00:03:06 Rick

I think it was. Fun fact, it was like a two-hour episode and we split it into three episodes. But yeah, what is Farm to School? It's a very short one.

00:03:15 Michelle

It's 12 minutes.

00:03:16 Rick

Listen to it. It's one of the first ones recorded. It wasn't the first one we released, just so you know. But yeah. And then we split it up into kind of our life stories. I interviewed Michelle, Michelle interviewed me and that was, yeah. And we are trying something new that we'll add to this episode as well is a shared community Google Doc attached to each episode that where you can put ideas.

00:03:40 Michelle

So why don't we pose the question, how do you define farm to school and or what would you call it? Like what is branding and marketing and messages that are really resonating in different communities?

00:03:52 Rick

Homework for you guys.

00:03:54 Michelle

Thank you.

00:03:55 Rick

And that's a good way to say hi to us too, because we have buttons for people to push to say hi and offer a show note. It's called connect.

00:04:02 Michelle

It's called connect.

00:04:03 Rick

That's good too.

00:04:04 Michelle

Your other homework is check out any of these books by the principal farmer.

00:04:07 Rick

Okay. Well, let's listen.

00:04:11 Michelle

We've been in a we've been in a very loud hallway, so I'm not sure why we're like being polite and all of a sudden.

00:04:17 May Tsupros

Yeah, y'all are doing it because I've been watching you do this all in the conference and I'm so impressed that you are doing this in this busy hallway.

00:04:28 Christy Sherding

It's been fun, which is why we're like, they need to wrap up because we've been having such a good time together doing this. Like Michelle's a rock star. This is her jam. Rick, her co-host couldn't be here, unfortunately. Shout out to Rick. But they graciously allowed me to be a special guest co-host and I'm having the time of my life.

00:04:48 Michelle

Yay.

00:04:49 Christy Sherding

Which is why I don't know how to be quiet.

00:04:52 Michelle

So we actually are nearing the second day and the last day of full programming at the 2025 National Farm to Cafeteria Conference.

00:05:03 Michelle

And we have two of our special guests. I know this is about, we're all smiling, so it's hard to talk when you're smiling so much. How about you introduce yourselves and tell us where you're from?

00:05:15 Patrick Muhammad

Sure. Okay, so I'm Patrick Muhammad, affectionately known as the principal farmer. So I have the great opportunity to run a charter school, and the focus is on agriculture. Kindergarten through 8th grade. We're right outside of Atlanta. The campus sits on 11 acres. It's an open campus, all individual pod buildings. We have 800 acres of hiking trails connected to the school.

00:05:42 Michelle

Amazing. This place sounds magical.

00:05:43 Patrick Muhammad

And we have everything from peacocks to emus to cute white eyes to African tortoise, guinea pigs, greenhouse. Yes. It's our theme is learning is in our nature and we're a diamond in the woods. And our goal every day is to allow children to wonder as they wander so they can get back in touch with nature and have that creativity in a school setting. And so every day is an exciting day. We start off with music and laughter and hugs and chasing butterflies and dragon, dragonflies, all that kind of stuff. It's because education right now is such a confined space that children can't be children. But our school, we're determined to let a child be a child every day. So that's us.

00:06:40 May Tsupros

Amazing.

00:06:42 Michelle

Okay. Let's see who else we have to meet with us.

00:06:44 Christy Sherding

I'm like, I'm dumbfounded. We have a lot of questions.

00:06:46 May Tsupros

Hi everyone.  My name is May Tsupros and I'm the Director of Farm to Institution Programs at the Center for Regional Food Systems at Michigan State University.  And I've been in this position for almost two years.  And before that, I've been working as an executive director at Farm to School nonprofits, times 2 in rural Michigan and then in Chicago. Before that, I was a teacher in Chicago Public Schools. And yesterday, I was going up to Ron Finley, a hero, when I founded a non-profit in Chicago. Ron was one of my inspirations. And I hugged Ron, cried on his shoulder, and then looked to my left, and Patrick was there. And that is how we met. Fate. Yeah, and I think like it's the, you know, that's the essence and this beauty of this conference is like people across, like, you know, from all parts of the country are meeting each other and finding meaning solidarity and our kids, our students in the kids and eating healthy. And so I just saw Patrick and I was like, Patrick, come on this podcast with me. So I brought somebody different than I originally thought, but I'm going to let Patrick take it away because obviously he's got a really cool story.

00:08:08 Patrick Muhammad

I do believe that agriculture is the great equalizer. It's not gonna rain on my farm and not rain on the farmers next to me because our demographics are different, right? And so agriculture allows us to tap back into the true essence of nature. Nature is fair, right? And so- That's beautiful. Allowing children, thank you, allowing children to be exposed to nature really allows them to tap into that inner voice and let them find their purpose. There's no greater joy or love than a man or woman or child that finds their purpose. And so I've seen, this is 26 years in public education, I've seen at this school that we can take the curiosity of a child and guide them, not on a straight line, but guide them around to where they can, I wonder why this butterfly does this. I wonder why this plant grew this way. And when you allow them to do that, then the next cure for cancer is coming. Right? The problem to solve pollution is coming, but it's inside of those wandering minds that we allow to be great.

00:09:39 May Tsupros

That's why I said I want to sit a little closer to this human.

00:09:43 Patrick Muhammad

Or transfixed.

00:09:45 Michelle

You know, I think of that a lot. And thank you for giving, articulating and giving words to something. I'm picturing like a brick wall and there's a ladder against it, right? And on one side of the wall is a lot of garbage and problems. And on the other side of the wall that you can't see when you're low vibe and at the bottom of the ladder, the beautiful, nurturing garden on the other side of the wall. And it's when you climb that ladder, you get sleep, you eat, you do these things, you can get higher vibe and wonder, to the point you're up there looking at this big picture all the way around, and you see the garbage and the beauty and the connection between it, and then you solve cancer.

00:10:31 Patrick Muhammad

Yeah, that's right. One thing that when I met Mae as she was talking to Ron, it was her energy that touched me before I even turned around to see her. And it's because her and Ron were exchanging positive energy amongst each other. And so when we have that radius, I'm a horse person. with horses, they have a 20-foot radius. 

00:10:58 Michelle

I don't know what that means.

00:10:59 Patrick Muhammad

So when you're with a horse, that horse can feel your heartbeat within a 20-foot radius, right? And because their hearts are so larger, it can help to regulate yours. And so it's this energy exchange. I met her energy before I met the person. And her energy said, this is someone that you can exchange energies with, right? And so that breaks down all barriers. And if we continue to do that, then we can make progress because I'm not worried about where you grew up, what kind of socioeconomic, your energy matches my energy, let's go make progress. And that's what I see at this conference, that's what I see in the like minds, that's what I have experienced in agriculture.

00:11:50 May Tsupros

Drop the mic.

00:11:51 Christy Sherding

Seriously, but they're very expensive, I assume, so probably.

00:11:58 Michelle

To that point, like, you're the first principal I've met here. Have you met other administrators?

00:12:05 Patrick Muhammad

No, I haven't.

00:12:07 Michelle

So what brought you here? If this is, I mean, and are you surprised there's other administrators now here?

00:12:14 Patrick Muhammad

I am at a charter school; I was a traditional principal for years inside of systems. And I kept hitting the ceiling. I would have a great idea. I'm an idea person. And it would get stopped and I would get frustrated. And this charter school was just literally placed in my lap. I have a personal farm that's in Atlanta. The school is 5 minutes from my personal farm. I ride my horse sometime to the school.

00:12:43 Christy Sherding

Yeah, we need a picture of that.

00:12:46 Michelle

Okay, we got that for the show.

00:12:47 Patrick Muhammad

So they were looking for a principle with agriculture experience. You know, and God works in mysterious ways. I was frustrated with public education. The schools around the corner, I had never heard about it. Literally like around the corner, I'd never heard about it. And so when I got there and I saw the potential, which we talked about, I saw the greatness there. It just needed somebody to harvest the greatness, right? So we talk about at our school that you have to harvest trust. Parents don't trust you because they dropped their child off. That's a relationship and harvest means effort, right? And then you got to water that wellness, right? You got to give some life. Water is life. You got to give some life to that relationship. And so as a principle, that's my goal. That's my task. That's my daily responsibility, to create these relationships where families trust you enough to be vulnerable, and that's when you learn. Those brick walls are set up because I'm protecting my insecurities. I'm protecting where I'm most vulnerable. But if those walls are broken, right? And this is what happens through agriculture. We have a common desire to feed the world the best food. It breaks down those barriers. And now we're vulnerable enough to say, I can do this well. I can't do this well. Can you help me? And so as a principal, I know that's how we have to be as principals. I serve my staff. Staff doesn't serve me. Right. I'm there to make sure they have what they need to provide to the students, because that's our greatest product. And so it's an honor. I don't know why other principals are not here. Maybe they'll hear the podcast and they'll come next time.

00:14:40 Michelle

And speaking of other educators, adult educators in the space where you are, what kind of, we hear a lot about professional development and training and leadership. I'm just curious how you infuse the energy amongst a lot of different adults.

00:15:04 Patrick Muhammad

Educators are arrogant. have these degrees and these commas behind their names. But one question that I always use is, did you know? And so you could ask someone, did you know that there's only 60 years of harvest left on the earth because we're losing the top soil? And someone who's in their head, when that's something they don't know, now you've got the curiosity, right? And so, once that vulnerability again is there, now you slowly have to, share information that they may not be aware of, and then you show the value of the information you have, and now you kind of, you can bring them in. And so, when I bought my farm, I'm from East Saint Louis, Illinois, no farm experience.

00:15:59 Christy Sherding

Oh, we got to talk about that.

00:16:01 Patrick Muhammad

Yes, born and raised in East Saint Louis. We stepped out on faith. My wife's a teacher. We took our little teacher and principal income and bought 31 acres in Atlanta with no experience. We bought 8 cows living in a subdivision.

00:16:13 Christy Sherding

What drove you to do that? Like, that's such a big undertaking. But I mean, there had to have been, you know, some catalyst.

00:16:21 Patrick Muhammad

My father asked me, what are you going to leave my grandchildren? And I was like…

00:16:27 Christy Sherding

That's a powerful question.

00:16:28 Patrick Muhammad

In my mind, I was like, what are you going to leave me?

00:16:32 Christy Sherding

I'm your son.

00:16:34 Patrick Muhammad 

And he was like, you can't leave them a job. When you step out of their principal job, someone's going to be there probably the next day. So what are you going to leave my grandchildren? And when you look at families that have portfolios, right, a family should have a portfolio. If you look at families with portfolios, there's a farm in their portfolio for some reason. right? And that reason is you have to have the foundation of your family. When everybody goes out and get these degrees and living their good life, they always go back to grandma and grandpa's little bitty farm where the family started. And that centers you, that grounds you, that lets you understand the simplicity of life. right? Sitting on that rocking chair, looking out at the field and watching the cows or the horses come in and smelling the food that grandma's preparing on that, you know, the wood stove, you know, those smells, because I'm sure you can, you almost can smell it now or taste it or hear it, right? We have to have that. And so what my dad was telling me is, make sure that my grandchildren have a foundation they can come back to. And if you get a farm son, they're going to be there and I'm going to be there too. Right. And so that was enough. And we bought 8 cows living in a subdivision. I was like, what are we going to do with it? We need a farm. And the rest is history.

00:18:08 May Tsupros

Yep.

00:18:10 Christy Sherding

Thank you. I was like, okay, May, now we need to ask you a question.

00:18:13 May Tsupros

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, truly, truly, I think being an educator and then moving into a nonprofit space and then now back into state level work at a university. And I, when I met Patrick, my, and he was saying educators are egotistical, I resonate with that, right? Because we are in front of these kids all day. We are the center of these lives. We're, you know, in charge of their education. but our job is to really just uplift the skills and knowledge they already have with inside them, right? And so I am here just to uplift Patrick's voice. You know, that is, that's what I feel like my purpose is in this moment is to come here. We, I was coming here, I, you know, whatever to tell my story, but our paths crossed. And we met yesterday, we met today, and I came here just, and that's what I do, that's who I am. That's what I'm gonna.

00:19:11 Michelle

Say, yeah, what's your why and the seeds of like what gets... Because you've gone through so many different points in the farm to school ecosystem.

00:19:20 May Tsupros

Yes, a lot.

00:19:21 Michelle

I'm curious what keeps you engaged and evolving?

00:19:24 May Tsupros

So I am, I call myself a fire starter. I usually, I've started a nonprofit, I've scaled A nonprofit, rethinking the work at Center for Regional Food System right now. And usually I stay about five years and start the fire, rethink the work. And so a connector, right? And I feel like I'm bringing you here to start this fire, to have this conversation. You're A sustainer. You like are in it for the long term. You build a program and then you carry it forward. And yeah, so I just, that's, I'm a fire starter. That's my why in farm to school spaces. You see it, the big picture. You bring the people together. You let them tell their stories. You uplift them. And I think that's how we're going to move forward in this movement together. Yeah.

00:20:15 Michelle

And you're both in educational spaces in the grade schools. And then also, I'm really curious from the university perspective, like what fires are you starting within the higher educational system?

00:20:29 May Tsupros

Okay, here we go. This is, so I will say that There's a lot of red, coming from a space where non-profit, gritty, small, can move quickly in action. You come into the university space and it moves a lot slower.

00:20:48 Christy Sherding

Molasses.

00:20:49 May Tsupros

Molasses. And so the work that I am been focusing on is moving us to action. How can we in this university setting, ruffle some feathers and move the work to action and work with the people and not just make the decisions, right? Again, uplift the voices, go out there, build a space for us to find the grassroots people, the farmers, the food service staff. who are doing the work and uplift those voices. And I think that we need to be doing that as a university. We have privilege, we have resources, so let's disseminate those things and then get them to the people to do the work.

00:21:27 Christy Sherding

Do you have, sorry, Michelle, I know, super fan of Patrick's already, and I know you are as well, but is there an organization or a group or a program that you're working with in the Michigan area that you're really passionate about right now that you could share a little bit about? Tough question.

00:21:45 May Tsupros

Yeah, there's so many. I could, I think something, one thing. I will, what I will say is we just lost our 10 cents a meal program, which is a huge, huge, huge program. It was one of the very first local food procurement incentive programs in schools in the country. And our budget did not have it in the budget this year. So it got unfunded after 10 years of being funded, of giving reimbursements to school food service directors to purchase local food. It wasn't funded this year. And so I think in this moment, what we're doing is rethinking, coming back and going inward so that we can come back better. And that seems to be a trend across the country. So there's a lot of really great work around recalibrating in Michigan. We have a lot of really good stuff. Our food service stuff is, our food service programs are really incredible. Our CACFP, our programs are early farm to school, farm to early care. And we have a couple of superstars in the state too. And Dan Gorman and Alyssa Pensgar out in Muskegon. It's hard to say one main program.

00:23:09 Christy Sherding

No, that was an awesome answer. And I was wondering if you were going to talk about the 10 cents?

00:23:13 May Tsupros

Yeah, it's really, really sad. It got lost. It got lost. We were fighting for universal school meals. It was in the governor's budget. It was in the Senate budget. And ourhouse budget, they pulled it out.  They pulled out universal school meals. And so all of the energy went to fighting for universal school meals. And our beautiful 10 cents a meal program just got overlooked. And so if it's anything I've learned, it's like, hey, states, this stuff that you've worked so hard for, it can get taken away real quick. And it did for us. And so now we're re-strategizing about how to get it back.

00:23:49 Christy Sherding

I feel like you're gonna come, you're a fire starter. I think you're gonna figure out a way to come back better, bigger, and stronger.

00:23:55 May Tsupros

Yeah, just a little side note, we're now starting to pilot what it looks like to have local food procurement programs, incentive programs in other institutions. So community college, tribal colleges, hospital settings, senior centers, because I learned a lot about that in New Mexico, so that's part of their incentive programs. So we're piloting that. And I think it's part of a bigger plan, right? Ten cents is pausing, but what does it look like when we come back? with now five or six different incentive programs for different institutions in the state. And they're all working together, all combined. And we just have this huge buying power because we have institutions all over the state purchasing local food. So that is what I think we can do. I'm hoping for. There's people behind it. We just got to work. We got to move. We got to do some policy education and work with the people. Yeah, use our voices. 

00:24:49 Michelle

So that was big picture.

00:24:51 May Tsupros

That was big picture.

00:24:51 Michelle

And bringing it to the ground. I'm just, I'm just thinking of, I'm just like picturing kids in the soil and what's growing on the farm.

00:25:02 Patrick Muhammad

Right now we're in the winter in Atlanta. You know, so we have collard greens.

00:25:06 Michelle

That was air quotes winter.

00:25:08 Christy Sherding

Winter in Michigan versus winter in Atlanta. We just had two feet of snow.

00:25:13 Patrick Muhammad

Two feet of snow. We just got two bit of snow.

00:25:15 Christy Sherding

It's wild because we're here in New Mexico.

00:25:18 Michelle

New Mexico, which I was like, what, 26 degrees? Oh, did you see the hot air balloons this morning?

00:25:24 May Tsupros

Yes.

00:25:24 Michelle

I saw 19 hot air balloons and I was like, if it is 26 degrees on the ground.

00:25:30 Christy Sherding

Could you imagine how cold it is? No, thank you.

00:25:34 Patrick Muhammad

A moon sighting tonight that's like once in 10 years.

00:25:39 Christy Sherding

Oh.

00:25:39 Patrick Muhammad

Yes.

00:25:39 Patrick Muhammad

So I definitely want to see what the mountain that's going to be.

00:25:42 Christy Sherding

Yeah, This magical place we are convening together. You feel it.

00:25:47 Patrick Muhammad

Oh, I feel it. The energy.

00:25:48 Christy Sherding

It was the right location, by the way. I just, every piece of this conference has been so inspirational and magical, but this location is really cool.

00:25:57 Patrick Muhammad

I think one thing to talk about my friend, the fire starter, and listening to Ron yesterday, I think the conference is going to be a disruption, right?

00:26:09 Michelle

Say more about that.

00:26:12 Patrick Muhammad

I see that when we talk about the systems and the food stamps a couple of weeks ago and all that good stuff, I think what's about to happen is we're going to go outside the systems to create these spaces to where no one would ever be hungry because we're going to do it ourselves. And if everything drops, we're going to feed these children. And that's the intentionality that we have to have. The system is in place and it's great. But if the system fails, that doesn't mean that we're not. The sun's coming up tomorrow and the rays are going to come and no one's going to stop it. And if we have that mentality, it doesn't matter. I'm going to feed the next man and woman. When we have that kind of mentality, then we don't worry about the policies when they ask they flush it down. It doesn't matter. We're going to be there to provide just like Mother Nature provides for everybody and everything.

00:27:10 May Tsupros

Yeah, and I think we're reimagining a new world. And this space, this conference is definitely, with Ron speaking, like we are doing some disruption and that is why a white queer human can walk up with a beautiful black man from Atlanta and this, you know, we can, and we can say, like, this is our story that we met together and we're sticking to it. And we're sticking to it. And we are, I'm so proud to like know you and cross paths and you know, you represent the boots on the ground doing the work and I'm over here trying to change systems and we need each other.

00:27:46 Patrick Muhammad

I would end with this. Together we can.

00:27:50 Michelle

We need each other.

00:27:51 May Tsupros

Together we can.

00:27:51 Christy Sherding

I love that. I love that. That was beautiful.

00:27:54 Michelle

Thank you.

00:27:55 May Tsupros

Thank you.

00:27:56 Christy Sherding

Thank you.

00:27:59 Rick

There we go.

00:28:00 Rick

Thank you, Principal Farmer, and thank you, May Tsupros.

00:28:02 Michelle

Thanks, May.

00:28:03 Rick

And thank you, Christy Sherding from Henry Ford, who was our co-host in this thing in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:28:12 Michelle

And thank you all so much for making time to listen today. Farm to School was written, directed, and produced by Rick and Michelle, with production support from Leanne Lochner and Lauren Tobey of Oregon State University. This podcast was made possible in part by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:28:30 Rick

The content and ideas of the Farm to School podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University or the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers.

00:28:45 Michelle

Learn more about Farm to School, check out our episode, show notes, our contact information. And yeah, we'd really like to try this shared community Google Doc related to how you talk about Farm to School, like what works, what doesn't in your communities, and with different audiences. Let's learn from each other and cross-pollinate ideas.

00:29:05 Rick

Okay, everybody, thank you. See you next time.

00:29:07 Michelle

Ciao.