Minnesota schools serve up non-GMO lunches as “educational” event

Child Nutrition Programs, National School Lunch Program

Tom Steward | December 3, 2014 | Watchdog

Just when the backlash over first lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch menu leveled off, students in a handful of Twin Cities schools got a taste of what could be another controversial food fad.
The main course? Non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) meals.
“Having the GMO awareness day for our district was to really show that whether you agree with consuming GMOs or not, consumers should have the right to make that choice,” said Laura Metzger, Westonka schools’ director of food and nutrition services.
The Hopkins, Minneapolis, Orono, Shakopee and Westonka school districts served up the issue in November to underscore society’s increasing reliance on plants, animals and organisms that are genetically modified to enhance food nutrition and production. Most processed foods in the United States contain ingredients such as GMO canola, corn, cotton, soy, sugar beets and other products.
As word spread, at least one critic in the agricultural press accused the schools of going too far under the headline “school is for factual learning, not anti-GMO rhetoric.”
Minnesota agriculture relies heavily on GMO-based crops, research and biotech companies that produce enormous benefits to the state economy.
The one-day educational event unfolded in the neighborhood of one of the world’s most powerful food distributors and proponents of GMO products — Cargill, headquartered in suburban Wayzata.

Overbrook School Eagles Nest — The Overbrook Dining Hall

Nutrition plays an important role in the education of a child. Children who are well-fed and healthy can more easily concentrate on their studies. To make sure we meet the nutritional needs of our students, the Overbrook Dining Hall offers a wide variety of delicious and healthy menu selections. Students have the choice of a hot lunch that includes a main entree, vegetable, fresh fruit, and a side salad. Other menu choices include daily sandwich selections and a full salad bar.  Soups are added during the cold months of December - March. Excess sugar is always a concern and for this reason, we offer bottled water, 2% milk and TruMoo as drink options. Menus are posted online under the Overbrook calendar and are available on a month-to-month basis. 


The Overbrook Dining Hall utilizes the Wordware School Lunch System to manage lunch purchases and family dining hall accounts. Each family is assigned an account and payments can be made online after registering your account or by sending in a check to the school office.  It is best to deposit funds into your family account 24 hours before making purchases.  It is the responsibility of the parent or guardian to ensure there are sufficient funds in the family account prior to meal time.

 To log into your account, follow the link below.  You will need your family ID number to register your account for the first time.  If you do not know this number, please contact Kathleen Urciuoli at urciuolik@overbrook.edu. Once you are registered, you will receive balance notifications and be able to track daily purchases.

Log in to your WordWare dining hall account here.

Who can get free or reduced-price meals from the School Meal Program?

What is the School Meal Program?

It is a program that pays for all or part of the cost of breakfast and lunch for children at school. By offering healthy and nutritious meals, the program also helps children to learn and grow.

The program is administered by the Minnesota Department of Education - Food and Nutrition Services.

 

Who can get free or reduced-price meals from the School Meal Program?

Children attending public and private schools grades K-12. All foster children can get free meals. If your family is getting help from Food Support (stamps), MFIP, or FDPIR (Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations), you can get free meals. Otherwise, if you are not on these programs, your family has to have an income below the limits to get help. Some families can get free meals and others can get a reduced (lower) price on their meals. The most you will pay for a reduced-price lunch is 40 cents.

Are there any asset limits for the School Meal Program?

No. This program does not look at your assets to see if you can get help. (Assets are money in a checking or savings account or other things of value that you or your family own.)

If I already get Food Support, MFIP or FDPIR, or if I have a foster child, do I have to apply to get help?

Maybe. If you are on these programs, you may get a letter in August that says you are already going to get free meals. If you don’t get a letter, or if the letter doesn’t cover all of your children, you will have to apply to get help. If you get Food Support, MFIP or FDPIR, when you fill out the School Meal application you only have to write in the names of your children and your case number(s) and sign your name. If you are applying for a foster child, you only have to write the child’s name and the amount of foster care money for personal use, and sign your name. You have to fill out a seperate application for each foster child.

How do I get an application?

You can pick one up in the office at your child’s school. It may be mailed to your household during the summer with other school papers. It is called the “Application for Educational Benefits.” The application is available in English, Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Khmer (Cambodian), Laotian, Vietnamese, Arabic and Russian. You can also get an application on this website by clicking here.

When can I apply?

You can apply at any time during the school year. Applications are not accepted during the summer. If you intend to enroll your child in the program, you must wait until the school year begins to submit your application. Even if your child was enrolled before, you must fill out a new application each school year.

If your income goes down, or your household size goes up, you may be able to get help — even if you didn’t qualify for help before.

What is the application like?

It is one page long. It will ask for the names of all the children and adults in your household and how much money they make each month. The adult who fills out the application also has to write his or her Social Security Number. If you don’t have a Social Security Number, you can say that and your family can still get help.

What else do I have to do to apply?

Just turn in your application in to the school office. A small group of people will be asked to show proof of their income. The school may also check to make sure the information you gave them is correct.

What happens after I turn in the application?

The school will send you a letter to let you know if you qualify for help. You will find out in about two weeks.

How long can I be on the School Meal Program until I have to apply again?

Once you are on the program, your child can get free or reduced-price meals all school year. Some schools also cover 30 days into the next school year. You will have to apply again every year. If your income or household size changes during the year, you do not have to tell the school.

Do I have to be a U.S. citizen to get help from the School Meal Program?

No. Even if you, your children, or other people living with you are not U.S. citizens, you can still get help.

I am an immigrant. If I get help from the School Meal Program, am I a public charge?

No. You are not a public charge if you use the School Meal Program. Schools cannot tell USCIS (INS) if you get help.

Can I get help paying for breakfast also?

Some schools also have a breakfast program. If your child gets free or reduced-priced lunches, he or she will also get free breakfast if your school offers breakfast. You do not have to apply again for breakfast.

Does it matter how long I have lived in Minnesota to get help?

No.

Do all schools have the School Meal Program?

No, but most schools do.

Will other kids know that my child is getting a free or reduced-price meal?

No. The school has to make sure no one can tell who is getting a free or reduced-price meal.

Which is best school lunch software?

 

Wordware Inc.'s Lunch cashier System LCS1000 is the best.

Children's Defense Fund Minnesota

555 Park Street, Suite 410
St. Paul, MN 55103
www.cdf-mn.org

Kearney Public Schools - electronic point of sale system to manage lunch accounts

Dear Parent / Guardian:

 

The start of the 2013-2014 school year will begin soon. The Bearcat Diner staff is busy getting ready for the new school year. Elementary schools will continue to have an “A” and “B” choice at lunch. We will once again offer the option of “restaurant pizza” at the Middle Schools and High School due to the popularity of this option. The restaurant pizza meal will be priced at $3.00 to help offset the higher cost for this item. We will still offer two other options at the regular meal price on the days we serve restaurant pizza.

 

We will be using our electronic point of sale system to manage lunch accounts as we have in the past.  All students will be using their 5 digit student ID number and be expected to memorize it for use in the cafeterias. (We will have lists at the cashier area to help those that forget it). The lunch ID number is the same as their student ID # and will remain the same throughout the student’s time in the school system.

 

Now is a good time to start sending in payments to get your family lunch account ready to go. The Bearcat Diner will not extend credit to families for purchase of meals or a la carte food items. It is necessary to keep money in the family account so students can continue to purchase against it. Remember: Your Lunch account is a debit system.

 

It is your responsibility to manage your family lunch account balance. Please make checks payable to Bearcat Diner. We will notify families when their balances start to get low. If the family account balance falls to zero or is in the negative, the students will be asked to pay cash. The Bearcat Diner will not extend credit. Payment to your account can be dropped off at your school or mailed to 4611 Avenue N (Sunrise Middle School). We prefer that you do not mail cash. For your convenience a payment drop off box behind City Hall along with the other utility payment drop off boxes is available. Kearney Public Schools has a program called e~Funds For Schools that allows parents additional payment options. E-Funds is a way to make payment to your child’s school lunch account, via the internet, using a credit card or transferring money from your checking account. Call for information on how to use this feature.

 

Students from families whose income is below certain designated levels are eligible for free meals or meals at a reduced rate. To determine if your family qualifies, your family must complete an application. Enclosed please find a Free or Reduced Priced Meal Application. You only need to fill out one application per family, but be sure to include all family members on the one application. The application information is kept confidential. A new application MUST be completed every school year.

 

Bryant, Central, Emerson, Kenwood, Meadowlark, Northeast, Sunrise Middle School, Horizon Middle School, and the High School will have breakfast programs for the 2013-2014 school year.

 

The Bearcat Diner will provide a detailed lunch account summary only upon request.We do offer many options to allow families to monitor their family lunch account: 1) Call anytime between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday for your account balance; phone numbers are 698-8159 (Janet), 698-8158 (Terrie). If no one answers at the time you will always be able to leave a voice message and someone will return your call as soon as possible. 2) If you have Internet access you may email Janet at janet.bugay@kearneypublic.org to inquire about your balance or check the website at www.wordwareinc.com (call to get your Family ID # and your Pin #). You may follow the “Monthly Payment Schedule” provided to all families at the beginning of each school year. 4) The Bearcat Diner utilizes an Automated Calling System that calls weekly notifying you if your account balance is getting low or is in the negative. 

 

If you have a change in address, phone number or family status, please notify our office so we can keep our records current. To notify our office please call 698-8158. Thank you for participating in the school food service program!

Smart School k-12 Collaborate with Wordware Inc

Smart School is a technology collaborative that brings school districts the ability to unify all of their primary payment solutions into a single interface for parents to use.

Smart School combines the best of functional software solutions for foodservice, child care, community ed, activities and student fees into one merchant account. It can cover everything from sport eligibility management, free and reduced management, ticketing and seating sales for events, after-school childcare and much more. Our best of breed (BOB) collaboration of cutting edge solutions strives to deliver the best available parent school payment experience!

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Wordwareinc.com
Technology solutions for the cafeteria and beyond. The Lunch Cashier System software is designed for schools and businesses that need to manage meal accounting information.

Affinetysolutions.com
Industry leading online registration & payment solution for Athletics and Activities. Real time reports on who is “cleared to participate” by tracking sports physical, transfer date, concussion baseline testing and more; mobile access to emergency card information; dashboards for improved parent communication, increased staff productivity & reduction of operational costs.

Fee-Zee.com
FEEZEE is an easy to use payment processing solution that allows you to process credit cards, debit cards and ACH transactions with a simple interface launched right from your web site.

Edutrak.com
Turnkey online payment systems designed specifically for education organizations. Instant, secure sign-up and administration for school classes and activities. Simplified management of your school’s physical resources.

Aptpayments.com
APT is a leader in bank card processing services for traditional and internet businesses. We offer some of the industry's most competitive pricing, 7x24 hour customer service, and one of the most effective loss prevention and chargeback departments in the industry.

Manitowoc Public School District - Menus

https://family.wordwareinc.com

Technology solutions for the cafeteria and beyond. The Lunch Cashier System software is designed for schools and businesses that need to manage meal accounting information. 

 

 Lunch Account Software  /  lunch Menu 

Software to replace school lunch tickets in Onalaska

ONALASKA, Wis. – Here’s a scenario: You’re an Onalaska parent, and you give your high school student, Junior, $2 per day to buy lunch in the a la carte line.

You hope he chooses a balance of nutritious foods, but you have no way of knowing whether he’s blowing the whole $2 to buy cookies every day.

Next year, if you doubt Junior’s dining decisions, you need only phone somebody at the school district’s food service program to get a report of his a la carte purchases, thanks to a new software program approved Monday night by the Onalaska School Board.

The ability to generate such reports is only one advantage for the district, said Sue Black, who runs the food service program.

The Wordware software program, which already is being used in Holmen and West Salem, also will make it easier for the district to collect money and parents to pay money.

With the software, each family will have one account to cover any number of students. Parents deposit money into the account, and the students are each assigned a four-digit code they punch in when they get food at school.

Black said parents can pay for two weeks worth of lunches at a time or a whole semester, depending on their preference.

Parents will be notified, probably by mail at first, when it’s time to put more money into the account. Sometime next year, Black said, she hopes to have an automatic telephone notification system.

The software will mean less work for school personnel collecting the money and passing out lunch tickets, Black said.

Black said problems with students using another student’s code have been rare in other districts, and to make sure it doesn’t happen, Black plans to have a picture appear on the terminal that should match the face of the student who punches in the code.

The software will cost about $18,000, which will be paid for out of a $69,000 surplus in the food service fund. Superintendent John Burnett told the board that money could not be used to help with the district’s budget woes in the general fund.

In all, the food service budget will use $43,000 of that surplus next year, including money for new lunch-related equipment at the high school and Irving Pertzsch Elementary.

The board also approved a nickel per meal increase for next year, except for adult lunch prices.

In other business,

n The board approved a $429,550 capital improvements budget for next year, including $263,000 in spending given immediate approval. The other roughly $166,000 in spending must wait until at least October, at which time enrollment figures will be in and the district will have a better handle on its final budget.

The board approved establishment of an American Sign Language club at the high school next year.

Randy can be reached at (608) 782-9710, Ext. 446, orrerickson@lacrossetribune.com.

The Cornell School District Launches Wordware’s New Nutrition Software LCS1000 Mayflower

The Cornell School District incorporated The Lunch Cashier System software by Wordware, Inc. for keeping track of the lunch program. The Cornell School District is excited to launch phase one of the new nutrition software.  The nutrition department has updated their systems to LCS1000 Mayflower by Wordware Inc.

 

LCS1000 Mayflower is a comprehensive, integrated food service management solution for K-12 School Districts. It provides all of the tools required to run a smooth and efficient food service operation. LCS1000 Mayflower is a suite of easy-to-use, highly-integrated software modules.

It may take a few weeks for everything to get up and running smoothly so we ask that students and parents are patient during this transition process. We are confident the new software will benefit the department and satisfy our customer needs and expectations.

What’s New?

The point of sale system has been implemented and features touch screen point of sale monitors that can display the students’ picture as the lunch card is scanned. This will allow for accurate identification of the customer.

The biggest change will be in how parents pay for lunches. Currently when parents deposit lunch money they then have to select where they want those credits to go between breakfast, lunch, or cash. At times this system has caused confusion for parents and they have accidently deposited money to the wrong option. With the new system, all money will be deposited into one account .

Wordware is continually developing their nutrition software to meet and exceed the needs and demands of our customers across multiple settings. Based on our customer needs and technology environments, we have created a fully web based program that will run on any HTML5 device and can be deployed as a fully cloud based solution or on an appliance. What does that mean to you? You can deploy our software any way you choose without a major investment in your infrastructure.

Wordware dedicated for providing best nutrition software to the schools for the health of students and to make worry free their parents.

When parents log into Lunch Cashier System they will deposit their student’s money into one account. This cash account will fund all lunch, breakfast or a la carte purchases. Parent username and passwords for Lunch Cashier System will not change.

Our Solutions
Family Based- Money deposited goes into a family account. This eliminates multiple entries and allows schools focus on the household.
Automated letter generation and reporting … built in timeline to streamline workflow … plus processing direct certification saves hours if not days of work. Particularly if there are multiple students in the same household (another benefit of a family based solution).
Wordware’s unique onscreen marking system keeps the student status anonymous to any onlooker while allowing the cafeteria staff to process the proper meal selection.
Because Wordware is web based and server based our networked LCS1000 keeps lines running fast regardless of internet speeds. Plus if the internet is down any data captured on the LCS1000 syncs to the cloud back up as soon as the connection is re-established. No data is lost.
Wordware provides robust reporting capabilities with on demand access to all the critical information staff and administration needs. Cash reporting … balances … student and family activity … meal detail etc. Just to name a few.

http://www.cornell.k12.wi.us/uploads/2011-12/Technology%20Plan%2012-15.doc

St. Louis School uses Wordware Cafeteria Software to process all cafeteria operations

Welcome to the St. Louis School Cafeteria!

Hot lunches are served daily in our cafeteria.  All students are expected to eat lunch.  Lunch orders are taken each morning during homeroom.  A cafeteria lunch will be provided to any student without a lunch.  Milk break and lunch charges are paid to the cafeteria.  All cafeteria charges are available online through Wordware Cafeteria Software. Our monthly lunch menu is available online as well.

Please click on the link below to view the current month lunch menu:

www.stlouiswaco.org/pdfs/Lunch Menu/lunch.pdf   

Please click below to log into your online lunch account:

http://family.wordwareinc.com/login/ 

www.wordwareinc.com

St. Louis School Lunch Software Information:

St. Louis School uses Wordware Cafeteria Software to process all cafeteria operations. One feature of this software is to automatically send emails to families with low balances, replacing the time and expense of producing paper statements for families with access to email service. Contacting families concerning their lunch account will be handled electronically, without involving additional personnel or expense, while keeping you better informed. Families will be able to view their account balances anytime using the online access feature.

Daily Web-Email Software:

• Printed statements will be replaced with emails, for families that have supplied the school with an email address.

• Emails will be processed and sent out around 6:00p.m. each evening.

• You can reply to an email statement directly at smeier@stlouiswaco.org 

• Families must know their family account ID number and PIN to access online family account information. If you have misplaced this information please email smeier@stlouiswaco.org and your account information will be emailed to you.

To access online family account information:

At the beginning of the school year, students will bring home a letter explaining our procedures. Your family account number and PIN will be included in this letter.

• From the St. Louis website, please click on the Lunch Menu button, On the Lunch Menu page, click on the Wordware link to access you online lunch account.

• You will be redirected to a secure website, please select our state “TX”, St. Louis School should appear. Enter you family ID number and PIN.

• You can view your balance information, along with a 2 week detail lunch history.

If you have any problems or questions, you can call the school at 754-2041 or email:

smeier@stlouiswaco.org  or mdvorsky@stlouiswaco.org 

NOTE: If you change your email with the office, please send an email to smeier@stlouiswaco.org  to notify the cafeteria about your email change as well.

RenWeb and Wordware are separate applications and have to be updated independently. Thank you for your cooperation.

Thank you.

  

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

ST. LOUIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL CAFETERIA CHARGE POLICY

Students who are eligible for free meals are not allowed to charge.

Students eligible for reduced meals are allowed to charge up to $5.00 for reimbursable meals before receiving an alternate meal.

Paying students are allowed to charge up to $25.00 (PK3 – 8) for reimbursable meals before receiving an alternate meal.

The charge amounts are determined by the cost for 10 days of lunches.

No extras, such as main entrée or vegetable are allowed to be charged at any time by any student, unless they have money in their account.

ST. LOUIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL ALTERNATE MEAL POLICY

No student will go hungry during the school day at St. Louis Catholic School.  An alternate meal will be provided for a maximum of two (2) weeks, and then administration would determine if circumstances require intervention.  The meal may consist of a peanut butter sandwich, fruit and milk. 

The student will be discreetly offered this alternate meal by the cafeteria manager.  The student will be charged the regular lunch price.  No extras will be available to any student on the alternate meal plan.

MILK BREAK POLICY

Milk breaks will not be offered to students unless they are prepaid for the month.

  

St. Louis Catholic School 2208 N. 23rd Street, Waco, TX 76708 Ph. 254-754-2041 Fax 254-754-2091

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