From Eugenia Davis on Sat, July 17, 2010

I regret to comment since I can no longer believe that the public school lunch program in the USA will improve.  It is a simple “do it or not” problem that is now wearing the cloak of “political tool”.  I have very recently come to the conclusion that schools should not serve food at all - after all the purpose of the school is to educate which it also fails miserably at.  I would be happy to see children bring their lunches to school and the parents assume the responsibility of feeding their child.  The children could then pick and choose the content of their lunch and it might possibly even result in the parent and child having an actual conversation.  The school is not a restaurant, it is not a church, it is not a morality teacher, etc.  It should exist solely for the purpose of educating children so that they are able to take their place in society.

From Mari Valentenyi on Wed, July 28, 2010

As a teacher in an inner city elementary school where 99% of our students receive free lunches, I see how atrocious our school lunches are but I also see that many children would not get a meal at all if the school did not serve lunch. I have seen children crying because they were still hungry after eating a school meal- and be denied seconds because of the school’s budget!!! So you know that this child is not getting fed, or fed enough, at home.

The idea of abolishing school lunches is very naive. Alot of the parents have no idea what a healthy meal consists of even if they did have the money to buy proper food.

I am disgusted that, as a nation, we cannot do better by these children

From Beth Bento on Thu, July 29, 2010

I agree that the idea of dicontinuing the school lunch program is knee jerk and naive. For the most part this is the hot meal of the day for most children and the most nutrition they get. In the summer they go without, some cities try to continue the programs to ensure that childhood hunger doesn’t happen. Mari, what you posted is true and it is heartbreaking.

My children participate in the reduced lunch program. I selectively allow them to purchase and we go over the menus to pick out the best choice for them, nutritionally. They understand that the food that goes into their bodies it the fuel to run that body.

If we give up trying to reform the lunch program, then we give up on hungry children. And that is a shame.

From David Schwake on Thu, July 29, 2010

I am always amused at the folks who want to paint all school meal programs with the same brush. Not sure when the last time they stepped foot in a school cafeteria but would be more than happy to buy them lunch at any of the 17 schools in our K-8 district of 12K students of which 40% are on the F&R program. Every student is allowed to select their daily meal components including items from two 6’ fresh fruit and veggie bars. When they return from the summer vacation next week they will be greeted with locally grown ice cold watermelon, cantalope, honeydew, summer squash, tomatoes, and anything else we can get from our neighboring farmers. They will also be able to select spinach, romaine salad (no iceberg on these salad bars!),fresh strawberries, fresh peaches, pears, several choices in apples, kiwi,three bean salad, chick peas, frozen green peas (yes even grade school kids will take peas when they are brightly color and slightly crunchy). The items account for probably 50% of our daily offerings. These items are available on every one of the 185 days we are in session and also also available during our Summer Feeding Program during June and July. You may wonder how we get these young students to choose from the fruit bars. It is really very simple. During the first week of school every kindergarten class is invited to the dining room at different times to participate in a salad building contest(everyone is a winner and gets a reward). Students are shown how to select items and proper portioning from the produce bars. Their eyes of course are as big as saucers and when they are finished they get to enjoy their efforts. That is all it takes and for the next 9 years they grow to enjoy the wide selection of produce offered daily. A side benefit is that when a new student joins their class the other students are more than happy to show them the ropes including using tongs and not your hands. I think the most rewarding result of this program over the last 15 years is to see the 7th and 8th grade students enjoying the fruit and veggie bar selections daily. I am sure most of you know how challenging it can be to get this age group to choose healthy choices but because they have been choosing healthy food items for many years it just seems to become second nature to them.

In addition to our very healthy menu we also dress up in different fruit and veggie costumes and visit as many classrooms as possible at each school to introduce new or unusual produce such as Kiwi, purple carrots, squash, and star fruit. Kids and teacher get a kick out of it and we try to always touch on a nutrition point or two. It is not unusual for kids to come to lunch that day and head straight to the produce bars to find the item that was demo that day in class.

Is all of the above simple to do? Yes, if you have a dedicated school staff who realize how important healthy food choices can be to growing children.

From Mari Valentenyi on Thu, July 29, 2010

Wow! I am so glad to hear about your school’s great lunch program. Which school district are you describing? Do all schools get the same budget per child for food or do more affluent counties have more funds for food? If we get as much money per child as you do, I’d like to know why Richmond City schools are not using their money as well s your school?

From Eugenia Davis on Thu, July 29, 2010

Mr. Schwake,
I applaud you and the entire staff at your schools for what seems to be an honest effort to try to influence the children’s food choices.  It seems you are successful as well.
I am well aware that all school lunch programs are not the same but, unfortunately, programs such as yours are rare.  I am curious to know where you are located - especially important if I am to be treated to lunch.   I am also curious about your summer feeding program. Is this for students who are attending summer classes?  Is it the norm in your state for 40% of the students to be on a free lunch program?  I am surprised at that number.  I also wonder if you have ever had a chance to meet with the parents of these children to try and discover why they are not able to feed their children?  This is all so interesting to me and I have so many questions.  I apologize for that.  Thank you for your response to my original comment.

From Beth Bento on Thu, July 29, 2010

David,

I’ve enjoyed lunchtime in the cafeteria at the “parent’s table” many times in 3 different states and the food seems the same. I’ve always brought my own food. Sub par at best, Smuckers sandwiches, canned veg (with veg that looks similar to cattle feed). In FL, in the richest county in the state, the food was and is still the worst I’ve seen. :(

Your program sounds swell, and to food conscious families a blessing. I’ve read several studies that show programs similar to yours with solid nutrition can help at risk students with behavior, and grades, without needing an increase to food budget. Would you be willing to
share your details?

From Kelley on Fri, July 30, 2010

Another response to Mr. Schwake:  I too am completely fascinated by your description of school lunches at your school.  From what you describe, it should be a model for other schools, and I am very curious about the funding aspect, since most objections to upgrades seem to be finance-related.  How is this sophisticated program funded?  I also am very interested in the classroom nutrition presentations.  Is this done throughout the school district?  Would it be a problem for you to share details or contacts for those of us interested in getting more information?  I think your program should be highlighted, especially during this debate, to show people that improved and healthy school lunch programs can work.  I am about to embark on a campaign in Florida to change standards for school lunches here, so your information would be very useful to us/me.  Thank you.

From Jessica Skinner on Sat, July 31, 2010

I’m happy to have stumbled upon this discussion.  In much of the press I read about school lunch programs and the Child Nutrition bills, there is generally a smattering of voices that illustrate the lunch programs that I grew up with (processed meats, mystery gravy and canned vegetables) as well as student choice and farm fresh produce. 

Mr. Schwake, you do relate an excellent story about how it CAN work within whole school districts, and how children truly respond positively to good, healthy food. I encourage you to get your story out there!  Write a letter with your successes as well as your how-to to the community food security coalition, post it to other food-related blogs or websites such as that of Two Angry Moms, and get the word out there about how to make it work.  Sometimes, its just about making the right connections and knowing where to start.  Looks like you already have a following. 

I am not a parent or a teaching in a classroom (although I’m am recently certified), but I have met with many farmers, teachers, school administrators and food service directors in my area of SW New Hampshire and have gauged that making changes in the local school lunch programs is not easy, but it is definitely do-able.  In the ConVal School District, the food service director has a relationship with local apple growers, a bakery (for bagels), and a variety of other products that come from local producers.  They also have a large greenhouse at the middle school where they grow salad greens for the cafeteria.  I’m not as familiar with the details or statistics of their school lunch program, but I can say that their kids see food growing every day they walk into the building between the greenhouse and raised bed gardens placed directly in front of the school building.  It’s a beautiful sight to see☺ 

The Child Nutrition Reauthorization of 2010 will be a turning point for our school lunch programs and I highly encourage all of you to recommend that your friends, school administrators, teachers, community members and even kids, call your state representatives to let them know how much you support this bill in order to maintain and improve school lunch and after-care food options.  Details can be found on the website for the Community Food Security Coalition.

From David Schwake on Sun, August 01, 2010

Would like to thank all of you that have posted replies and wanted to give you more info on our school meal programs. I have been the Food Director at our district for the last 15 years and prior to that had worked in both institutional and commercial food industry. Have been a registered dietitian for over 20 years which I think has given me insight to how important it is to make sure every item offered students is a healthy choice. I believe that the school meal programs offer us one of the best opportunities to tackle a couple a couple of huge problems. One is the hunger issue. I know for a fact that without the Free and Reduced meal program there would be many students who would go hungry. (In my spare time I volunteer/work with many hunger programs here in Arizona including working with the food banks) I also know that the school meal programs offer us a very easy way to fight the childhood obesity problem that has grown in recent years. Offering fresh produce on a daily basis can help reduce both of these issues and allows us to also teach young children how to choose healthy choices. It seems to me that common sense would indicate that since we have these children for two meals a day for a 185 days we would take advantage of opportunity and make sure every item offered is a healthy choice every day. As far as the produce offerings I am sure that I remember many years ago when the message was to increase the number of produce you eat each day. I guess that stuck in my mind and has been a main guideline for me since.  Those of you that choose to speak with your local school food directors and admin will hear like I do often that they cannot afford to increase their produce offerings. My reply is that they cannot afford to not offer more produce. There are many funding programs out there that will assist schools in promoting fresh produce to students. You just have to figure out which ones will work for your district. You will probably have to use come creativity if you live in an area of the country that have fewer produce resources but guess that is what I thought we get paid for as Food Directors.

The Child Nutrition bill that is up for renewal is very important and I spent several days this spring in DC lobbying in support of this program. Although there are several areas in the bill that I believe should be changed prior to passage it should help improve the school meal programs and does include language related to using local fresh produce. The biggest concern is in asking for an increase in the reimbursement rate for both breakfast and dinner. Our district does not fund any of the Food Dept operations what so ever and we are able to maintain a healthy financial status with the current USDA reimbursement rates. I am just not sure what I would do with additional funding. Another small part of the legislation will deal with Nutritional Guidelines/Standards and how they will be applied to School Food Programs. Several years ago I had the opportunity to help work on the Arizona Nutritional Standards bill (Junk Food Bill) and met many times with all the stakeholders including the beverage and snack lobby folks. It amazed me that a person could sit there and say a first grader has a right to ask for a soda with their breakfast or lunch meal. Fortunately we were able to use common sense and passed a pretty good bill that applied to all food served to K-8 students in Arizona. It was disappointing that we could not get it in the high schools but I believe if we do our job with the K-8 students then when they go to high school they will demand the same healthy choices at meal time.I have not problem with all the stakeholders having a say in proposed legislation but feel that our students health should be given the highest priority on the final draft of the bill. We are constantly told that if the nutrition standards are too high the food manufactures will not be able to stay in business but it only took a couple of months for these same companies to come up with products that met the Arizona Nutrition Standards.

Much of what I have written has been on our produce offerings and need to let you know that we also utilize a large amount of what use to be called USDA commodities but is now being called USDA Foods for many of our menu items. Although many of these products are still being produced with too much fat and sodium we have been able to use these very affordable items in our food programs and seek to balance them out fat and sodium with more produce offerings. Again it just seem to make sense to me that if the USDA Foods are offered for a very low costs why would we choose to not menu them especially if they are items the students like. Although we try and use as much fresh produce as possible we do use water packed canned fruits from the USDA on a daily basis for all our produce bars. Our menus are analyzed on a weekly basis to meet all the nutrition guidelines and we have never had a problem meeting any of the targets thanks in large part to our produce offerings. 

Need to get going and will put more later today if I get a chance. Thanks again for thinking about the school meal programs and do not be discouraged if changes come more slowly than we would like.

Let me know if there are specifics you would like to have me address or comment on. Thanks

From David Schwake on Sun, August 01, 2010

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From organic gardens on Thu, August 12, 2010

As a teacher in an inner city elementary school where 99% of our students receive free lunches, I see how atrocious our school lunches are but I also see that many children would not get a meal at all if the school did not serve lunch. I have seen children crying because they were still hungry after eating a school meal- and be denied seconds because of the school’s budget!!! So you know that this child is not getting fed, or fed enough, at home.

The idea of abolishing school lunches is very naive. Alot of the parents have no idea what a healthy meal consists of even if they did have the money to buy proper food.

I am disgusted that, as a nation, we cannot do better by these children

From filozima on Thu, August 12, 2010

I applaud you and the entire staff at your schools for what seems to be an honest effort to try to influence the children’s food choices.  It seems you are successful as well.
I am well aware that all school lunch programs are not the same but, unfortunately, programs such as yours are rare.  I am curious to know where you are located - especially important if I am to be treated to lunch. smile I am also curious about your summer feeding program. Is this for students who are attending summer classes?  Is it the norm in your state for 40% of the students to be on a free lunch program?  I am surprised at that number.  I also wonder if you have ever had a chance to meet with the parents of these children to try and discover why they are not able to feed their children?  This is all so interesting to me and I have so many questions.  I apologize for that.  Thank you for your response to my original comment.
organic garden