Lesson Plans
Schools handle scrutiny of health and financial issues with renewed goals and stronger practices
By Margaret Sheridan, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 8/1/2004
Financial and social pressures are nothing new to school foodservice directors, who learn to master such challenges as thoroughly as students do their ABCs. Preparing and serving nutritious meals on tight budgets with overextended staffs are daily realities.
But lately a new layer of scrutiny has been added, one that challenges even the steadiest heads: the public outcry over childhood obesity. The National Center for Health Statistics finds that the percent of children ages 6 to 11 who are overweight more than doubled between the late 1970s and 2000. The percent of adolescents 12 to 19 who are overweight tripled during that time.
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Primary and secondary schools are understandable starting points when legislators, nutritionists and others ask why American children’s waistlines are ballooning: 36 million breakfasts and lunches are served daily under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National School Lunch program and School Breakfast Program. The debate over what kids should be offered to eat at schools has challenged foodservice directors to rethink long-entrenched nutrition policies and help devise solutions to the problem.
“The biggest challenge [to school foodservice] is obesity because it is so far-reaching,” says Donna Wittrock, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based American School Food Service Association (ASFSA). It has an impact on nutrition policy and curriculum, how funds are raised or used, the duration of meal periods, where exercise fits in and more. “Added to these [concerns] are budget cuts,” she explains. “They put more pressure on foodservice to carry extra costs.”
One positive aspect of these obesity concerns is their unifying impact, according to Paula Montgomery, child nutrition supervisor for Fairborn (Ohio) City Schools. “Teachers, families and community are more aware of the problem. And that’s good. It renews our commitment,” she says.
Pressure Points
According to Chicago researcher Technomic Inc., U.S. primary
and secondary school foodservice is a $13.6 billion business.
Colleges by comparison generate $9.7 billion. Technomic forecasts
1.9% nominal growth in K-12 school sales for this year.
Cost containment is a continuous challenge. Gail Johnson, assistant superintendent for auxiliary services for East Baton Rouge Parish (La.) School System, likens her work to a restaurateur’s. “My challenges are how to keep costs down and keep money coming in,” she says.
“I have 35 minutes, total, daily to make $140,000—that’s $4,000 a minute.”
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Her biggest cost is healthcare benefits. With a staff of 518, she pays $6,200 per person annually in health costs, up $1,000 from 2003. The annual foodservice budget for her district, comprising 97 schools, is $25 million with $7 million spent on food and beverage purchases.
About 66% of the district’s students receive free meals. The USDA reimburses $1.20 for each free breakfast served and $2.19 for lunch.
Johnson cites smart purchasing and increased participation (which increases USDA reimbursements) as keys to fiscally sound foodservice. Adding kid-favorite items such as chicken strips and giving incentives to staff to promote meals helped increase breakfast participation by 3% and lunch by 1.3%. Cost savings have come from providing more reimbursable meals, switching from a monthly to a three-week menu cycle and trimming an inventory of 1,500 products by one-third.
Penny Parham, administrative director, department of food and nutrition, Miami-Dade County (Fla.) Public Schools, controls expenses by comparing cost and expenditure data with other districts in Florida. For annual food purchases, which amount to $46.9 million, she has learned to be very specific when writing specs. “I tell vendors the amount of breading, ingredients—even the type of pepper—I want in chicken nuggets,” she says. Insisting on no trans-fatty acids or on smoothie products with fructose is doable, she says. “Give vendors time to find what you want, and you get it,” says Parham.
Funds and Games
USDA-reimbursable meals help control costs for the 359,228 students
at 352 Miami-Dade County Public Schools. About 74% of meals are
free and 9% reduced-price (which receive lower reimbursement),
according to Parham. Getting families who qualify for the National
School Lunch or School Breakfast programs to fill out eligibility
paperwork is a challenge. Many in her district are migrant workers
or immigrants. Language and literacy present hurdles for some
residents,
while others hesitate to divulge personal information. “The
community helps,” says Parham. Volunteers, social workers
and counselors go into homes. Though paperwork is considerable,
the effort helps children get fed, and returns funds to the district.
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Grappling with rising costs, unemployment in the community and decreased enrollment puts pressure on Hattie Johnson, director of foodservice for Gary (Ind.) Community School Corp. In creating menus she adds more reimbursable items (which meet USDA strictures on fat content), replacing ice cream with frozen fruit treats, a reimbursable item, for example. Indiana’s automatic certification process helps identify families eligible for free or reduced-price meals. As much as 63% of district meals are free and 2% reduced.
Increasing participation and teaching nutrition are approached as games by Penny McConnell and her staff of 10 supervisors at Fairfax County Public Schools in Springfield, Va. They cruise halls, classrooms and cafeterias on a regular basis to talk with students and play a version of bingo using food and nutrition concepts. Cooking classes attract attendance because they’re fun and active. Recipe booklets, created by aspiring cooks, go home. “It’s a way to get parents involved and show what kids are eating and learning,” she adds.
Labor Challenge
Finding part-time labor is another challenge for many districts.
Though 34 of Gary’s schools are completely staffed, Johnson
is down 11 foodservice employees from a peak of 130 in the past
year. Last June, the district shut five schools due to the closing
of area steel mills over the past five years. Her labor pool
for part-time workers is shallow. “The full-time foodservice workers who have been laid off make more money on unemployment
compensation than they can by working part-time for me.”
Training a multicultural workforce is McConnell’s challenge. To attract, teach and retain some 1,300 foodservice workers for Fairfax County Public Schools, she has employment applications and some foodservice materials translated into Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Urdu. To standardize training in 178 schools, she relies on colorful posters, step-by-step photos and eye-arresting graphics. Employees use photos to see how to set up a salad bar and plate foods and for portion-control and food-safety procedures.
Spec Check
Two years ago, Beth Hurdle and Emily Hartman conducted a review
of 1,500 food products used by East Baton Rouge Parish (La.)
Public Schools. The registered dietitian and purchasing coordinator,
respectively, analyzed and taste-tested each of the items.
Some were rejected and others reordered. Along the way, they
also discovered some new choices.
The goal was to find products that met district standards for nutrition, quality and taste. “Vendors were great,” says Hartman. “We got what we wanted.”
The experience resulted in cost savings for the school district and an open-door policy for vendors. Appointments are taken daily or weekly to minimize backlog. Tasting by staff, then students, are held monthly. Hartman estimates they spend up to 16 hours each week on inventory and procurement.
Inventory has been decreased from 1,500 items to 1,000. Schools switched from month-cycle menus to three-week. Food waste has been minimized as leftovers are quickly utilized. “We reduced waste by a third,” says Hartman.
Revision of purchasing specs is ongoing to find new products and healthful substitutes that meet USDA nutrition guidelines and district’s high standards. The current requirements for pepperoni pizza, for example, stipulate low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese. A portion cannot exceed more than 13 grams of fat per serving. In 1997, the school allowed 20 grams of fat.
Retail Copy
Successful retail practices can work in
school foodservice. “What
Starbucks did for selling coffee can translate to us,’’ says
John Peukert, referring to the Seattle-based java giant turning
a cup of coffee into an experience. “What we have in common
is a product, customers and service,’’ says the assistant
superintendent of business services for San Bernardino City (Calif.)
Unified School District.
Peukert understands that a retail environment
can translate to a school setting. During his 20-year career
as a school-foodservice executive, he streamlined food production
with a centralized kitchen, grew revenues in catering and generated
over $1 million in profit over a five-year period. Success
comes from applying practices he learned from working in restaurants
and the food industry, he says. Among them:
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