Farm to School program means colorful lunch trays

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Kate Kompas, kkompas@stcloudtimes.com 12:37 p.m. CDT October 9, 2015

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(Photo: Kimm Anderson, kanderson@stcloudtimes.com)

FOLEY — State department officials dined with Foley High School students Tuesday in the cafeteria as they got an up-close look at the results of the district’s “Farm To School” program. The farmers who were responsible for the fresh produce being served at lunchtime ate there, too.
On Tuesday’s menu: chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy with rosemary and thyme right from the school’s garden, along with a homemade roll, squash, watermelon, bananas and more. Patty Donahue, cook manager for grades 4-12, said she based the gravy recipe off one used by the Food Network’s Ina Garten.
Foley is among more than 200 districts statewide in the Farm to School program, which serves half of Minnesota’s students, according to information provided by the state. The Foley district has participated since 2012. Farm to School has awarded money to districts to help them participate in the program; Foley received about $11,000 from the state for fiscal year 2015.
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Buy PhotoFresh fruits and vegetables, many of them locally grown, are offered Tuesday in the Foley High School lunch line. The school participates in the Farm to School program. (Photo: Kimm Anderson, kanderson@stcloudtimes.com)

The Foley school district gets fresh produce from Stoney Brook Farms and Novak Farms, both near Foley. Representatives from the farms as well as the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, which awards grants related to Farm to School, are visiting schools around the state.
The Foley district is buying a tilting braising pan so it can make more meals from scratch, too.
Farm to School means more prep time for kitchen staffers, Foley school service director Cheryl Pick said. The benefits far outweigh the time, though.
“The kids enjoy it, and that’s why we do it,” she said.
School officials said up to 87 percent of high school students take hot meals; Foley High School has about 1,600 students.
Many high school students at lunch Tuesday had banana peels or green strawberry tops on their trays. Students can take unlimited amounts of fruits and veggies.
“You see so much color on their plates,” Foley High School Principal Shayne Kusler said.
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Buy PhotoFoley School District Food Service Director Cheryl Pick, right, leads a tour of the district’s raised gardens Tuesday for farmers, representatives of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. (Photo: Kimm Anderson, kanderson@stcloudtimes.com)

The farms provide everything from sweet corn to kohlrabi for the lunches.
“It’s good to promote the fresh vegetable aspect of it for the kids,” said Mark Chmielewski of Stoney Brook Farm.
Greg Novak of Novak Farm recently sold 48 quarts of strawberries, an 800-pound bin of watermelon and cucumbers to the district. Farm to School is good for his business. His only request: He wishes Minnesota schools could start earlier so Foley could get the best of his harvest, but he likes closing out the season with the district. (And when he was a student at Foley, no, he doesn’t believe he had such healthful choices at lunchtime.)
Ellie Manderfeld, a Foley senior, admitted she likes fruits more than veggies.
“When we have the options, it’s nice,” she said.
Many of the students were busy getting big cups of what looked like ice cream at lunchtime. School officials had to break it to them that it was frozen yogurt.
Follow Kate Kompas on Twitter @copygirlkate, or call her at 259-3620.

Buy PhotoGilman-area farmer Greg Novak of Novak Farms, right, talks with junior Leo Zimmermann as Novak gets to sample the school lunch offering of the day Tuesday at Foley High School. (Photo: Kimm Anderson, kanderson@stcloudtimes.com)

Dayton seeks to fill gaps in Minnesota school lunch program

MINNEAPOLIS -- Governor Mark Dayton is calling on state legislators to add $3.5 million to the school lunch budget in the state, so that children who now pay a reduced price for meals will be able to get them FOR free.
Dayton made his remarks Tuesday in the wake of a statewide survey of school districts by Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, showing that some districts deny food to children who are behind on lunch payments.
"No child in Minnesota should be denied a healthy lunch," Gov. Dayton said in a prepared statement.
"We cannot expect our students to succeed on an empty stomach."
Dayton endorsed a bill authored last session by Rep. Yvonne Selcer of Minnetonka in the House and Sen. Jeff Hayden of Minneapolis in the Senate.
Students from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level qualify for free lunches already. That level is roughly $25,000 for a family of four.
Children from families between 130 percent and 185 percent of poverty level, or $36,000 for a family of four, qualify for a reduced price lunch. Those students are expected to pay 40 cents per meal out of pocket currently in most school districts.
"These are very poor kids and we have the resources," Jessica Webster, the Legal Aid attorney who wrote the report summing up the survey of schools, told KARE.
"There is no reason to punish children in this way."
The Legal Aid study found that 46 districts in the state have policies, at least on paper, that allow cafeteria staff to withhold lunch from students who have fallen behind on those lunch payments.
The majority of schools, a total of 166 districts, told Legal Aid that they give peanut butter or cheese sandwiches and milk to students who stop paying, rather than the full fledged hot meal at lunch.
"I would argue that is by no means a nutritionally balanced meal for a kid, and the federal government agrees with that because we've had all of these healthy mandates come down," Webster said.
Another subset of 97 districts, including the Minneapolis Public Schools, have decided to provide hot lunches to all children who are eligible for reduced price lunch regardless of whether the children are making payments. In fact, in Minneapolis the school board decided to go ahead an absorb that 40 cent per meal cost of feeding students who only eligible for reduced price lunches.
Webster has been working on the school lunch issue for six years but the idea has gotten very little traction at the legislature.
But in January story out of Utah drew national attention to the issue of cafeteria finances. Cafeteria workers at a Salt Lake City school were ordered to pull lunches away from 40 children who had already gone through the line only to discover their lunch money accounts were empty. Because the food had already been served it had to be thrown in the trash, in keeping with food safety regulations.
"People didn't want to believe the same thing is happening here, but it is," Webster remarked.
"Maybe it's not 40 children in one cafeteria on the same day, but it's children all over the state who have to deal with this through no fault of their own."
She also decried the practice, which still exists in some schools, of stamping the word "money" and "lunch" on children's hands as a way to alert parents that their lunch money accounts are depleted.
Two of the districts that made the list of 46, the Osseo Schools and the West Saint Paul - Mendota Heights Schools, took issue with the Legal Aid survey's description.
Barb Olson of the Osseo Schools said that the district policy, in writing, sounds as though students can be denied meals. But she said in reality no child in Osseo is ever turned away without some type of lunch such as a sandwich and piece of fruit.
Carrie Hilger of the West St. Paul Schools said children never have to worry about having their lunch trays pulled back, but they may be fed an alternative lunch such as a sandwich and milk rather than that day's regular menu selection.

John Croman, KARE 

Why Some Schools Are Saying ‘No Thanks’ to the School-Lunch Program By Alexandra Sifferlin

States are reporting that some of their schools are dropping out of the healthier school-lunch program because they can’t afford to participate. But does that really mean nutritious school lunches (and snacks) are doomed?


The majority of the nation’s schools — about 94% — are participating in the National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools for the meals they serve and provides food at lower cost to feed lower-income students. These schools must follow new criteria required by the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, and include more grains, fresh fruits and vegetables in lunches. But for some, these changes are pretty challenging to follow.

In a survey conducted this summer of more than 520 district nutrition directors, the School Nutrition Association reported that a very small percentage — 1% — of schools were dropping out of the program for the 2013–14 school year, and 3% were considering abandoning the program.

(MORE: What the New USDA Rules for Healthier School Snacks Mean for Schools)
Why? Kids aren’t buying the better-for-them options in the cafeteria, and that’s leading to a drop in revenue for some schools. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pays schools back about $2.93 cents per lunch served to a child eligible for free meals, and the USDA offers an additional 6¢ per lunch for schools meeting the standards. But for smaller or nonprofit private schools that simply don’t have enough kids who qualify for these lunches, the often higher costs to feed them healthy meals that adhere to the new nutrition guidelines are not covered by this reimbursement.

“My understanding, from a few of the districts that have dropped off, is that their free and reduced percentage could be as low as 5% of the students, which means that all they are getting for the reimbursable meal is 30¢,” says Julia Bauscher, the president-elect of the School Nutrition Association and school-nutrition director at Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Ky. “If they had previously not offered a lot of whole grains or fruits and vegetables, or their students didn’t choose them, there was a significant increase in cost of providing the meals.”

Take the Voorheesville Central School District near Albany, N.Y., which the Associated Press featured in its story about schools struggling with the new lunch-program requirements. Superintendent Teresa Snyder says the district lost $30,000 in revenue during the first quarter of the year because of the program, since students either brought lunch from home or went without, instead of purchasing the healthier options offered in the cafeteria.

But that district is very small, and less than 6% of its students qualify for reduced or free lunch. The school still offers healthy food, and to find a way to maintain the school-lunch program, administrators worked with students to develop a nutritious and more cost-effective menu that would appeal to kids. “For us, this is not a political statement, but an economic one. We believe in the intent of the law, it simply does not apply to a district like ours,” says Snyder. “I do believe our issues revolve around our small population of free and reduced lunch — the reimbursements are so low they do not balance the cost of providing the meals according to the guidelines.”

(MORE: Stricter School-Lunch Standards Lead to Lighter Kids)
Smaller schools may also face an additional hurdle, since most of the people responsible for achieving this balance are volunteers who aren’t trained in nutrition — or food distribution. “In Kansas we have a lot of private schools and oftentimes the food-service director may be a parent, and they may not have had a lot of background in food service, so they need additional help and training. Our public schools have people who have more experience,” says Cheryl Johnson, director of child nutrition and wellness for the Kansas State Department of Education.

Of course, the entire program is predicated on the fact that children will welcome — and eat — the healthier options. As TIME has reported, schools with the greatest success in making their cafeterias healthier started early and introduced changes gradually. The Jefferson County Public Schools district in Louisville, Ky., for example, made its lunchrooms offer 50% whole grains for an entire year before the rules were even enacted, for example.

“The bigger the difference between what [the students] were accustomed to seeing on their serving line in 2011 to 2012 vs. what they saw in 2012 to 2013, the more difficult it was for the school food-service director to address the needs and concerns of the students,” says Bauscher.
USDA undersecretary Kevin Concannon says the schools that have been the most successful have also considered food presentation. For instance, dyeing applesauce bright green seems to draw students to grab it in the lunch line — possibly because they think it’s sweeter and more decadent than it actually is. “It’s a matter of really training the palate. Kids are the same as adults, we get used to eating certain ways and all of a sudden there’s an abrupt change,” he says.

(MORE: More Food for Hungry Students: USDA Tweaks School Meals)
The most difficult to please, not surprisingly, are teens in high school. Because they are probably more set in their eating habits, and because high school athletes, for example, need to eat more calories, these schools have experienced the most backlash against the new lunch options, which many students felt were too skimpy. (Wallace County High School students in Sharon Springs, Kans., even made a video that went viral last year in which they sang about their hunger pangs.)

In response to these complaints, the USDA decided to waive some of the original restrictions, by removing limits on the amount of protein and whole grains per meal. Those amendments to the rules will remain in effect this school year. Johnson says after the video, there was a 5% drop in participation among Kansas schools, but that had shrunk to only 3% by the end of the school year.

It may take several school years for the new lunch standards to be accepted, and several more before their effects are seen in children’s eating habits. What we consume, not to mention the process of sourcing, preparing and distributing food, can’t be changed overnight, much less over a semester or two. “Eating healthier is a good thing, but it is more expensive. And the truth is most students don’t want to eat healthier, so there has been and will be a transition period because what is being served at school in many cases doesn’t look like what they eat at home,” says Michael Smith, the superintendent at Tuscola Community Unit School District No. 301 in Tuscola, Ill. “I’m a proponent of the new standards health-wise, but it is another example of how all of these issues are dumped on schools. I wish they would also be addressed in other places where students eat, like fast-food [restaurants] and gas stations.”

Still, the goal of the new standards is to encourage healthy eating early on, before unhealthy habits set in. If children in elementary schools are seeing more grains and fresh produce in their cafeterias, then they may be more likely to try them and continue eating them as adolescents and adults. School, after all, is a place for learning, and that includes the cafeteria.

*This piece was updated with the latest numbers on school lunch participation.

Alexandra Sifferlin @acsifferlin

Alexandra Sifferlin is a writer and producer for TIME Healthland. She is a graduate from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.

Wordware Inc, Provides School Lunch Software for hassle free operation in your school Cafeteria.

Wordware, Inc. participating in The NCEA Convention & Expo.

The NCEA Convention & Expo is the largest private-education association gathering in the nation. Those participating represent all aspects of Catholic school and faith-based education from preschool, elementary, secondary, adult education, colleges and universities. The Convention is a time to celebrate, to acquire new knowledge, and to renew your spirit. San Diego is just the place for that to happen to you!

Wordware, Inc. has decided to participate in NCEA Convention & Expo to showcase is latest Lunchroom cashiering System LCS1000 Mayflower. A computerized lunch cashier system covers both the breakfast and lunch programs.  The program has brought favourable comments from parents and students and appreciations to schools around the nation.

Wordware's Lunch Cashier System saves your times and provides better environment by linking all by linking relevant information together for you, Point of sale software reduces time span which you do in repetitive data entry. Only Point of sale software in the industry with Lowest Audit Failure Rate Since 1986.

The District uses an automated lunch accounting system to record food service payments and to monitor food transactions. Computerized Lunch Cashier System School District provides a hot lunch program through Wordware, Inc.  The program is available to all children in the District in grades K-12. The main objective of the lunch program is to provide nourishing, appealing lunches for students without subsidy from tax dollars. The system functions as a debit system, similar to a checking account. Parents/guardians may initiate a lunch account by sending a check made payable to the  School District with your child at registration (grades 6-12) or handed in to the office the first day of school.

The Lunch cashier system is an advance payment system set up for the purchase of school lunch in the school cafeteria.  It is available in all most of the District Schools powered by Wordware. 

We integrate with a number of industry-leading online payment portals, meaning faster funds availability for both you, and your students. Wordware Lunch Cashier System provides school cafeteria Point of Sale Software for K-12 schools, college, university, corporate, healthcare, military cafeterias etc.  Everything about the LCS1000 Mayflower software has been updated to ensure that you can focus on your students - not your point of sale software. Ours application is world Top Food Service Management Software Product.

Your appliance licensing entitles you to the following features and benefits:

• The award-winning LCS1000 Mayflower software.
• Our cloud-based service, served up directly from our fast and secure datacenter.
• Fully syncronized backups of your data, keeping your data safe.
• Access to our dedicated technical support team, because if a problem does arise, you are not alone.
• A combined 25+ years of experience in providing service and support to districts like yours!

Savings on cost of goods

• ·         Reduce over production
• ·         Procurement/Inventory management
• ·         Menu forecasting with pre-costing
• ·         Menu pricing
• ·         Student sales analysis
• ·         Lowest Audit Failure
• ·         Single Family Login
• ·         LCS100 Web based server

The process is simple and eliminates the need to find lunch money everyday.  If your student is a frequent customer of the school foodservice, the best way to use system. 

This all inclusive module generates participation, revenue, reimbursement claims, and edit check reports for the entire district and automatically manages communications between Online payment gateway, PCS’s web portal, the district and the school cafeteria sites.

These are only a few ways in which Cafeteria management software can aid you. The benefits of using one such software are multiple. If you aren’t using these functionalities of your Cafeteria management software, you immediately need work with your team, and study these reports and if you current software doesn’t provide such in depth reports, you many need to upgrade your software. Wordware’s Lunch cashier software has been implemented in School cafeterias, college and universities, hospital settings and commercial building cafeterias in all over USA.

Lunch Cashier System is one of the Top Food Service Management Software

Wordware, Inc takes great pride in serving food industry, Lunch Cashier System is the best food management software which has all latest features and web based application, It saves double data entry task and a single login for a Family so parents don’t need to manage multiple accounts for their kids. We are continuously adding new families, maintaining balances, reviewing payment histories - we'd like to introduce you to the people that are helping to make the LCS 1000 the best cashiering system there is!

Our K-12 Lunch Cashier System Software is a top choice for Food Service Directors nationwide, most of the schools adopting our solution for their school. All the students and school staff are happy with the solution.

Here is an Application for you school or cafeteria section, Food Service Director or Business Manager and you have to let the school board know that your food service deficit is much larger that you budgeted for, we can help you big time!

•             Savings on cost of goods

•             Reduce over production

•             Procurement/Inventory management

•             Menu forecasting with pre-costing

•             Menu pricing

•             Student sales analysis

•             Lowest Audit Failure

•             Single Family Login

•             LCS100 Web based server

Lunch Cashier System  is based on family needs while other applications are students based, they focus only on individual students. Wordware focuses on the students as they truly are: part of a family. Our software starts with the family unit, and ties all accounting for students into that family. There is no repeated data entry from one sibling to the next and you can view all of the information for a family's  students in the same reports.

Automated E-Payment Processing – We have integrated automatic payment processing by which you can make e payment. The payment information will be transmitted from the e-payment company directly to the LCS 1000, all the payment processing done automatically in background LCS100 process payment from e payment section to payment section automatically. Everything is done in the background by the LCS 1000. All the transactions are secure so no need to worry.

Contact Wordware Inc for LCS 1000 demo