School as a PUMP or a FILTER - Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids

City Charter High School (City High) served some really bad lunches during its first 8 years. I know... I was the person who negotiated the contract to provide those terrible lunches. A little bit of mystery meat, tater tots, a small dollop of applesauce and that standard school lunch vegetable - ketchup.   At the time we were so busy getting the school up and running that we put an expedient lunch program in place. The meals were prepared off site, delivered in the morning and warmed up at the school.

Traditional School Lunch

64% of City High's students are eligible for a federally funded free or reduced lunch.  This represents about 370 City High students. The eligibility requirements are based on family income.  The chart below shows the guidelines for the 2013-14 school year.  Note that the federal government provides the school with $2.95 for each free lunch.  Unfortunately, during the early years at City High, only 250 eligible students actually ate a school lunch, meaning over 100 students turned down a free meal.  The other 240 non-eligible students either packed a lunch or didn't eat.  The only day when everybody ate lunch was Wednesdays when we had commercial pizza delivered.

Our school lunch program was run by two wonderful ladies (both had children who attended our school) - one full time and one half time.  The net cost to the school, after the federal subsidies, a small amount of revenue, the cost of food and the cost of personnel was $36,000.  That was the final cost to the school to serve lunch to about 40% of our students. We did our best at the time, but our best wasn't very good.

At the end of 2010, two important events changed our lunch program.  Through a massive effort by the White House and Congress a new law passed regarding school lunch programs. The person whose passion for quality nutrition helped to push through the federal law was Michelle Obama.

December, 2010, White House Executive Summary.  The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 represents a major step forward in our nation’s effort to provide all children with healthy food in schools. Increasingly schools are playing a central role in children’s health. Over 31 million children receive meals through the school lunch program and many children receive most, if not all, of their meals at school. With over seventeen million children living in food insecure households and one out of every three children in America now considered overweight or obese, schools often are on the front lines of our national challenge to combat childhood obesity and improve children’s overall health. This legislation includes significant improvements that will help provide children with healthier and more nutritious food options, educate children about making healthy food choices, and teach children healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

The second event was that City High was moving to a new building and had to decide how we would provide lunches in that facility.  This would be an opportunity to get our lunch program right. And if I dragged my heels or cheaped out our effort, I would be held accountable by my extremely militant, very competent, healthy and "won't take no for an answer" Assistant Principal who demanded a quality lunch program.  Thus, I had the opportunity to cost out a state of the art lunch program and learn from the economics and nutritional stories that evolved.

Start up costs for a quality nutritional program are not insignificant. The cost of building the kitchen and fixing up the existing cafeteria in the new building went to the landlord. I'm guessing he spent about $250,000 on the room, including water, sewer, plumbing, electric, walls, ceilings, lighting, etc.  Most schools already have this in place.  We then purchased about $200,000 in equipment to build a fully equipped production kitchen.  The kitchen had a walk in refrigerator, freezer and a dishwasher.  We were able to get a grant from the Heinz Endowments to pay for much of the equipment.  We then hired a chef, who hired a sous chef and kitchen worker and the two women who ran our kitchen previously.  Thus the staff went from 2 to 5.  We worked with the chef to create a menu that was healthy, locally sourced and freshly made.  So what does a newly designed, chef-run, nutritional program look like?

1. We serve a daily breakfast that is nutritional and supported through the federally subsidized nutrition program.  
2. We serve three lunches daily.
3. There are two lunch lines, ala carte and full lunch.  
4. The ala carte offerings include:
1. fresh salads with homemade dressings
2. wraps, both meat or vegetarian, with fresh greens on pita bread
3. yogurts with fresh fruit
4. fresh fruit juices and 1% milk
5. fresh homemade soup
5. The full lunch offerings include:
1. lunches made with no fried food, no french fries or tater tots
2. lunches that include a protein, multiple vegetables, fruit
3. drinks included water, fruit juices and 1% milk
4. fresh homemade soup made daily on site
5. bread often baked on site
6. desserts prepared on site
6. There is an emphasis on creating low sugar low salt meals that are well balanced nutritionally.  
7. We offer a vegetarian option daily.  
8. Students run a recycling program for the cafeteria.
9. There are no vending machines in the school.  

When the school opened in its new facility in January, 2011 the students had a new cafeteria and food service program to contend with.

On the first day back, all students received a free lunch and experienced the new menu. At our parent night, all the parents had a chance to sample the new menu.

Within a few short weeks, an astonishing thing was happening. We were serving over 375 meals daily, and for the first time, staff were buying lunches at the school.

As time went on, and the menu was refined, the number of meals served increased to close to 500 meals per day.  Students were actively engaged in the cafeteria. Teachers bought their lunch at the cafeteria and purchased quarts of soup to take home.










Students enjoyed the food, even new foods they had never tasted before.  Imagine high school students eating Lentil Soup... or Butternut Squash Soup.







So here's the best part from a nutritional perspective:

• 80% of the meals are made from scratch, feeding approximately 500 students a day;
• Fresh fruits and veggies are used daily;
• Minimal frozen or processed foods are used;
• Use of raw proteins (most schools won't attempt this due to unskilled labor);
• Soups, sandwiches, potatoes and salads with house-made dressings totaling 9 meal options daily;
• Minimal disposables; 
• Seasonally inspired cycle menus featuring comfort foods, regional cuisines and dishes that challenge and educate the urban palette; and 
• Local sourcing is used whenever possible.  Here are some menu facts:
• Five Cheese Pizza - house-made whole grain dough and sauce with cheeses made in Pennsylvania.
  Spring medley Pasta - 51% whole grain penne with fresh bulk italian sausage, local cherry tomatoes, broccoli and onions in a light garlic sauce.
  Cajun Tilapia - Farm raised tilapia with Louisiana born spices, Yukon gold over baked potatoes and a house-made southern sweet corn muffin.
  BBQ Chicken - Gerber's Amish Farm, Ohio raised chicken breast topped with house-made sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, caramelized onions and cheddar cheese served with corn on the cob and Grandma's cornbread.

And here's the best part from an economic perspective:

• Even though we are now serving twice as many meals, the net cost to our budget is only $70,000 (versus $36,000 when we were serving mediocre meals to only 250 students daily.)  
• 500 daily meals and 180 school days has us serving 90,000 meals a year at a net cost of $70,000.  
• Another way of saying this is we currently spend 78 cents per meal (over and above the $2.95 provided by the federal government) to provide an amazing program for students, many of whom live in poverty.  
• With over a $9 million overall school budget, that comes to  less than 1% of our budget.  A small price to pay to feed a quality breakfast and lunch to our students.   

So who could argue with providing quality nutrition for our children?  Well, if you've been reading the news recently, here's the answer to that question.

May, 2014, Time Magazine. House GOP Eyes Option for Schools to Skip Healthy Lunches

House Republicans floated a proposal Monday to give schools the ability to opt out of program championed by First Lady Michelle Obama: healthy lunches. The House Appropriations Committee’s 2015 agricultural budget proposal would allow cash-strapped schools to receive a temporary waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture healthy lunches standards. The standards, which were created following the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, require school lunch programs to ramp up offerings of fruits and vegetables, while placing caps on sodium, trans fats and calories in cafeteria food. The Maryland-based School Nutrition Association, which has asked Congress to allow schools more flexibility under the nutrition standards, says the standards have caused a financial burden for some of the 55,000 school nutrition professionals it represents.

Yes, that's right, we need to keep feeding our children high sodium, high sugar crap because four years after the legislation was passed, a number of districts are struggling.  A deeper look into the "struggle" unveils the dark side of the school lunch discussion.  At the center of this controversy is the School Nutrition Association.

June, 2014, Washington Post. Catherine Rampell Op-Ed. Kids hate school lunches? Let them eat cake.

...(the new guidelines) were also implemented with strong support from the School Nutrition Association, a lobbying group that represents school food professionals.  Now, four years later, the association has changed its tune and is lobbying Congress to gut the new nutritional requirements by letting districts effectively opt out of them altogether. Judging from a House Appropriations Committee vote last week, Republicans look eager to push through the lobby’s demands.

Rest assured, the School Nutrition Association says this alimentary about-face has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that half its revenue now comes from industry sources, as its spokeswoman recently told The Post. Or that the biggest sponsors of the organization’s most recent annual convention included PepsiCo, Domino’s Pizza, Sara Lee and Schwan Food, which reportedly sells pizzas to more than three-quarters of America’s 96,000 K-12 schools. (Pizza, remember, counts as a vegetable serving for school-meal purposes, thanks to the last time Congress decided to improve school nutritional standards.) Or that corporate members comprise a third of participants in the association’s annual legislative conference.

Basically, the new nutrition guidelines are cutting into the profits of companies that provide the traditional chicken fingers, tater tots and other processed products that our high in sodium and sugar.  When the School Nutrition Association makes their argument to allow waivers to the new guidelines, they try to obscure the issue by stating that children don't like fresh fruit or vegetables, or don't like whole wheat bread products. They claim the fresh food goes into the garbage and lunch sales are down, thus schools are losing money.

The School Nutrition Association finds a completely different reaction than what City High experienced with its lunch program. I don't doubt that some school lunch programs are not working.  This occurs in schools where the adults have not bought in and are critical in front of the students.  The process of change cannot occur without local advocates passionate for their lunch programs to succeed.  In fact, over 90% of school districts report that moving to the new nutrition standards has worked.  So there is a huge gap between what SNA states and what the majority of school districts experience.  Meanwhile, we are now in a position where Congress is considering going backwards in order to placate the large, corporate food industry.  Sometimes I think we hate our children.

Quality School Lunch

The school lunch program, like any educational endeavor, is an opportunity to teach students and broaden their perspective.  Our country has poor eating habits that lead to problems with obesity and poor health.  Implementing a quality lunch program helps students to understand that what they eat is important.  And it can change students' behaviors when given an opportunity to learn about eating a balanced diet. Providing a quality school lunch is using school as a PUMP to help all of our students to be healthy and self-aware regarding diet and lifestyle.

Moving back from quality standards to the old model is treating school as a FILTER. This is where the system gets ugly.  The Federal School Lunch Program was created to provide meals for students in poverty.  It has becoming apparent, that some members of Congress feel the quality of those meals should suffer to help the school lunch industry.  If you are really cynical, you believe this is an attempt to maximize profits on the backs of poor students. There is money to be made via a government program that caters to the needs of the poor. And that is what the new law threatened.

In America, the most bountiful country in the world, it is a sad state of affairs that we have such a high level of poverty.  When our country decides to provide low income students with a quality lunch (and breakfast) and an education on nutrition, it represents a commitment to helping all people live a quality life.  When our country caters to an industry that refuses to change and improve their product, it sacrifices its people in the name of profit.

C'mon folks... let's get this right.