The Problem with Your Child’s School Lunch

Is your child’s cafeteria failing to provide healthy, nutritious food?

By Elizabeth Foy Larsen from Parents Magazine

Nutrition Labels: 3 Things To Avoid

Paula Hible

Deep-fried popcorn chicken, tiny taters, bread, barbecue sauce, ketchup, milk. That high-fat, high-sodium, low-fiber menu is a typical lunch at a typical American elementary school. We know about it because Mrs. Q., a grade-school teacher, decided to eat her school’s lunch every day for an entire school year and report anonymously to the world on her blog, “Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project” (fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com). What she discovered about our kids’ midday meals is sobering if not surprising: Menu mainstays routinely feature fatty items such as pizza, french fries, hot dogs, and a mystery pork product called “ribicue.” She’s eaten beef with fake grill marks and lots of sweetened fruit cups.
Mrs. Q. didn’t know when she started documenting each meal that she would become a prominent voice on a hot-button issue that has galvanized not only high-profile chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Rachael Ray but also First Lady Michelle Obama. “I’m normally not subversive in any way,” Mrs. Q. says of her unexpected though anonymous celebrity status — we promised not to reveal her identity when we interviewed her. “But if you’re a parent you may not have a clue about what your kids are really eating. Lunches at my school are like overly packaged TV dinners gone bad.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. At Galtier Magnet Elementary School, in St. Paul, Minnesota, menus include whole-grain bread and pasta, along with unsweetened applesauce for dessert. There’s also a salad bar stocked with greens, carrots, peas, and grape tomatoes. A sauce station offers seasonings — low-fat ranch dressing, soy sauce, Louisiana hot sauce. Many of the kids in St. Paul still eat tacos and macaroni and cheese, but the cafeteria makes lower-fat versions of both. They also get edamame and chicken stew, which add vital nutrients into their diet.
While even detractors acknowledge that the quality of most American school lunches has steadily improved over the past 15 years, everyone from nutritionists and public-health experts to the First Lady — not to mention a growing number of extremely frustrated parents — believes that our children’s school lunches are still overprocessed affairs laden with unhealthy preservatives, sodium, sugar, and trans fat. Nutritional quality varies widely from district to district, but according to the USDA a typical school lunch far exceeds the recommended 500 milligrams of sodium; some districts, in fact, serve lunches with more than 1,000 milligrams. The USDA also reports that less than a third of schools stay below the recommended standard for fat content in their meals. “School lunches hardly resemble real food — they serve items such as chicken nuggets, which are highly processed, with additives and preservatives, and list more than 30 ingredients instead of just chicken,” says Marion Nestle, Ph.D., professor of nutrition food studies and public health at New York University. Nuggets are only one example of how schools rely on too many foods that are heavily processed and high in sugar, sodium, and chemicals. The problem isn’t simply that kids are eating unhealthy foods for lunch. The cafeteria’s offerings also give a seal of approval: “Kids associate school with education; therefore they get the wrong impression that these kinds of foods are healthy,” says Dr. Nestle.
And we’re not just talking about the stuff on the hot-lunch menu. Provided through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to children who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and breakfasts (and also offered to students who can pay full price), it meets the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. While NSLP meals — eaten by more than 31 million children, over half of all American students — need to be improved, the worst food lurks in what’s called à la carte service. That’s where any kid can buy anything from cake to pizza or brand-name junk food. These heavily marketed choices are essentially unregulated. (Hard candy and gum are not allowed to be sold but chocolate bars are, for example.) “We offer many choices in the school library but no pornography,” says Janet Poppendieck, Ph.D., author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. “We should offer an array of meals in school, but nothing unhealthy.”

Meals Gone Bad — and Good

Paula Hible

That disconnect shocked Lolli Leeson, a wellness educator and parent, when she volunteered in her kids’ lunchroom in Marble-head, Massachusetts. After 15 minutes, the students were allowed to throw out their lunch and buy junk food, such as cookies, candy, and chips, from the à la carte menu. “The kids were taught a bit about nutrition in the classroom, but the school was being hypocritical in not modeling it in the lunchroom,” she says.
We take it for granted that these are the foods that kids want to eat. But most experts disagree. Sam Kass, Mrs. Obama’s food-initiative coordinator, has been spending a lot of time visiting schools and hosting children at the White House garden as part of Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign. “When the First Lady planted and harvested the garden with kids and then cooked a meal with them, those kids ate salad like it was going out of style — like it was french fries — and they ate peas like they were the best thing they had ever tasted,” says Kass.
The food kids eat for lunch around the world is evidence that what we think of as kid-friendly is more nurture than nature. In France, menus include beet salad, pumpkin soup, and veal stew. Korean students eat kimchi and stir-fried beef with carrots.
In fact, the successes at Galtier Magnet School, where 80 percent of all the elementary students eat what’s prepared at school, and at other districts throughout the country, prove that it is possible to serve meals that are healthy, appeal to kids’ taste buds, and offer important lessons about the value of good nutrition — instead of being based on children’s whims. “We don’t allow kids to not learn about Shakespeare,” says chef Ann Cooper, aka “The Renegade Lunch Lady,” who overhauled the Berkeley, California, and Boulder, Colorado, school-lunch programs. “Why would we allow kids to decide that they don’t want to eat green food?” The urgency over what our kids are eating is due to some scary facts: Children born in the year 2000 have more than a 30 percent chance of developing diabetes during their lifetime, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 16.9 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 19 are already obese.

Lunch Lessons

At its core, the National School Lunch Program is a noble institution. Started in 1946 by President Truman to provide lunches to school-age children, the program was founded on the principle that keeping children healthy is vital to America’s prosperity. But even that basic mandate has become a complicated issue. Take milk, for example: Chocolate milk, for decades a school-cafeteria staple, has double the sugar content of unflavored milk, and some school districts, including Washington, D.C., have banned it while others are trying to reposition the drink as a dessert and limit when it’s offered. (For example, Chicago schools serve it only on Friday.) But flavored milk’s defenders can be found among the ranks of parents who fear that their children will miss out on crucial vitamin D and calcium because they won’t drink the unsweetened variety. The dairy industry, naturally, is also supportive: “It’s important to know that flavored milk provides the same nine essential nutrients as white milk, while contributing only 2 percent of the added sugar in a child’s diet. There are more valuable places to look if you’re trying to reduce sugar, like sports drinks, sodas, and other empty-calorie beverages,” says Ann Marie Krautheim, R.D., a spokesperson for the National Dairy Council.

Paying the Tab

It’s unfair to place all the blame on the schools, especially in these budget-strapped times where lunch programs are under pressure to break even. As Mrs. Obama told a national meeting of school-nutrition professionals back in the spring: “If you asked the average person to do what you do every day, and that is to prepare a meal for hundreds of hungry kids for just $2.68 a child — with only $1 to $1.25 of that money going to the food itself — they would look at you like you were crazy. That’s sad, but that’s less than what many folks spend on a cup of coffee in the morning.” When districts do want to make changes, even what seem like small tweaks start to add up; switching to 100 percent whole-wheat bread (which contains more protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals than white bread) costs Seattle Public Schools an extra $20,000 each year.
Both Dr. Nestle and Dr. Poppendieck recommend making school lunches free to all students. Doing so, they argue, will allow schools to put money spent on administering the current tiered system into improving the actual meals. With less pressure to lure paying students into the lunch line, food-service departments could concentrate on healthier foods.
But many of those sweeping changes aren’t in the cards yet. In fact, President Obama’s plan to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act has been scaled back to call for only six additional cents per meal. Although the funding increase is not enough to ensure that every American child will eat like the students in St. Paul, experts agree that the attention school lunches are getting in the media and the halls of Washington, D.C., should make it easier for parents to change their communities’ school lunches.
What should those changes be? Margo Wootan, the nutrition-policy expert at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), along with other advocates, says the first priority should be to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables offered at every meal. They would also like school-nutrition services to set maximum calorie targets rather than minimums — a practice that was started when the goal was to fight malnutrition. Switching to whole grains and low- or nonfat milk, getting rid of products that contain trans fat, and limiting sodium are the other goals rounding out their wish list.

Moms Make a Move

As anyone who has gone up against a school-lunch program knows, change can take years. That’s why even if your child is just a toddler, it’s not too early to start pushing for better food. When Weston, Connecticut, mom Amy Kalafa realized what was being served in her children’s lunchroom, she made Two Angry Moms, a documentary about what’s wrong with school lunches and how parents can improve them.
Kalafa’s film follows the efforts of Susan Rubin, a mom who had been working for more than a decade to improve the lunches in her children’s schools in Westchester County, New York. The film takes viewers through Rubin’s successful crusade to get items such as neon-green slushies, supersize cookies, and greasy fries off the menu.
Since making the film, Kalafa has seen improvements across the country, including chicken served on the bone, hearty soups, and vegetarian options. Change is possible. The CDC reports that while junk food is rampant in schools, the percentage of schools in which children are not permitted to buy it is increasing. But even though the government is advocating for change, parents still need to push for improvements at the district level. “Go into any school that has joined the school-lunch revolution and you will see kids eating unprocessed food, helping themselves from salad bars, and actually eating the meals, all within the typical 20-minute lunch period,” says Dr. Nestle. “Teachers in these schools swear that the kids behave and learn better, do not bounce off the walls after lunch, and show fewer signs of learning disorders. Can we teach schools to care about what students eat? Of course we can.”

Don’t Just Get Angry … Do Something

Be Realistic
In an ideal world, schools would serve more organic food, but most experts say that the current economic climate means that we need to set doable goals. Focus on requesting more fresh fruits and veggies, and adding whole-grain bread products.
Say No to Junk
According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the notion that schools need to sell junk food to raise revenue is a myth. USDA studies have shown the average school uses revenue from NSLP meals to offset the costs of producing à la carte options.
Say Yes to Tastings
Kids love events with food. Hold a fruit festival where parent volunteers offer pears, papayas, and more. Or get students invested in what’s being studied in class. If they’re learning about the Middle East, try a tasting with hummus and tabbouleh.
Get Kids Growing
Plant a school garden, connect with a local farm, or just plant pots of herbs for the classroom windowsill. “When children grow food themselves, they want to eat it,” says the founder of the fresh and local food movement in the United States, chef Alice Waters.
Recess Before Lunch
Researchers at Central Washington University, in Ellensburg, found that when recess was scheduled before lunch, students consumed significantly more food and nutrients than when play was after lunch.
Go to the Cafeteria
Everyone from lunch reformers to cafeteria managers insists that the best way to be informed is to experience it yourself. Reading weekly menus is no substitute for seeing, smelling, and tasting the food — as well as checking out the ambience.

Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign

Courtesy of The White House

First Lady Michelle Obama has set an ambitious goal: to end the childhood-obesity epidemic within a generation. To do so she’s advocating for better food labeling, encouraging increased physical activity, engineering access to nutritious food for all Americans, and demanding healthy food for our nation’s schools. As she told us in June when Parents visited the White House, “The school piece remains a critical part [of the campaign], because millions of kids are getting two meals a day at school.” The plan: fighting against the conventional wisdom that children won’t eat food that’s good for them by encouraging everything from school gardens to partnerships between local chefs and lunchroom staff.

• Learn more about Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign
• Click here to find assistant White House chef Sam Kass’ healthy lunch recipes.

Learn How to Improve School Lunches

Even if you’re packing lunch this year, your kids could be on the cafeteria line next year.
Check out these resources for advocating for nutritious school food.
The Lunch Box Chef Ann Cooper offers information and advice for parents and schools wanting to make the transition to healthier meals. Includes everything from recipes to budget planning.
Food Politics Nutrition and food-policy expert Marion Nestle, Ph.D., has a site that’s a must-read for staying in the know about how politics shapes what goes on our kids’ plates.
CSPI School Foods Tool Kit Includes downloadable guides with tools, strategies, case studies, and advice

Published in Print: March 5, 2014, as Bertrand Weber

Minneapolis Leader Turns School Cafeterias Into 'Real Kitchens'

Bertrand Weber
Focus of Strength: Student Nutrition
Position: Director, Culinary and Nutrition Services
District: Minneapolis Public Schools

Bertrand Weber had devoted his professional life—in boutique hotels and high-end restaurants—to pleasing the most discerning of palates.
But the breaded chicken nuggets and canned fruit swimming in syrup he saw on his son's lunch tray pushed the longtime hotel and restaurant manager to swap a career in stylish hospitality for the decidedly less posh world of school cafeterias.
He was determined to transform what K-12 students in Minnesota eat at school.
"We were pumping our kids with processed food," said Mr. Weber. "I became an angry parent."

Now, more than a decade later, Mr. Weber is the director of culinary and nutrition services for the 36,000-student Minneapolis district, where he is overseeing a massive shift in what students in that city encounter in their cafeterias.

He is steadily phasing out prepackaged meals assembled in a central kitchen and trucked to school lunchrooms and replacing them with meals made from scratch and featuring fresh fruit, vegetables, and meats and other ingredients that are locally sourced.
Butternut-squash turkey chili, heirloom-tomato salsas, and fresh salad bars are becoming fixtures in Minneapolis' school lunchrooms.
What makes the ongoing transformation in Minneapolis remarkable is that Mr. Weber has done it with a food-service budget considerably smaller than those of similarly sized districts. When he came on board in January 2012, Minneapolis' food budget was $15.6 million, compared with $23 million across the Mississippi River in the neighboring, and slightly bigger, St. Paul school district.
And he's doing it in a district where most of the 62 schools do not have fully functioning kitchens.
"It's a really smart tactic he's using to raise the image of his program so that participation rates go up and [he can] raise more revenue to do all the things he wants to do," said Jean Ronnei, the chief of operations for the St. Paul district and the vice president of the School Nutrition Association. "For 30 years, if you talked about school food in Minneapolis, you were talking about airline-type food. He is completely changing that, and with it, completely changing people's minds about what food is in that school system."

Personal Mission

Born in Switzerland, Mr. Weber, 57, brings a missionary's zeal to the job of school food. And for very personal reasons.
His son, at age 7, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, requiring daily doses of insulin and close monitoring of his food intake.
"I went to lunch with him every day in that first year after his diagnosis," Mr. Weber said. "The last things he needed were exactly the things being served in the cafeteria every day: highly refined carbohydrates and canned, syrupy fruit. I complained endlessly about the food."
A short time later, his son's district—Hopkins, in surburban Minneapolis—launched a search for a new food-services director who had a hospitality background like Mr. Weber's.

—Jenn Ackeman for Education Week

"My family said to me that if I didn't apply for the job, I could never complain about school food again," he said. "They were right."
He landed the job. Mr. Weber led the food-services program for three years in the 7,400-student Hopkins district, where he was able to introduce more fresh produce, purchase local food products, and involve students and the community in the planning of menus. He pushed hard to eliminate trans fats in Hopkins, years ahead of the recent federal mandate to so do.
From there, he left for a job overseeing nutrition and culinary standards for a privately owned food-management company that helped more than 180 districts across Minnesota and other Midwestern states bring fresh fruit and vegetable bars to school lunchrooms. He also got involved in the growing movement known as Farm to School and currently serves on the national network's executive committee.
"That was a great opportunity to impact more kids," he said.
Then, in 2011, the Minneapolis district's longtime food-services director retired, and prominent members of the city's local food movement urged Mr. Weber to go after the job.
First, he did some due diligence. He found that lunch participation districtwide was 58 percent, a dismal rate compared with St. Paul, where participation was at 78 percent. Cincinnati, a district of similar size and demographics, had a 70 percent participation rate. There was lots of room to grow, he thought, and the challenge of expanding and improving the meals program within the constraints of a public school district's budget appealed to him.
But he also thought his candor in the job interview might backfire.
"I was very straightforward that if they wanted someone to do the status quo, go right over me," Mr. Weber said. "And I said, if you want me for the job, it's going to be about changing the system for kids."

'A Real Kitchen'

In his first few months on the job, Mr. Weber went face to face with parents and students in multiple community meetings, soliciting their critical feedback.
"People were appalled by the food service, and I told them I was just as appalled," he said. "I told them some ideas we had for making things better, but I also was very upfront that this was going to take time. I couldn't just flip one switch and go from a food-packing plant to a real kitchen."
For starters, even the district's central kitchen had been stripped of nearly all its cooking equipment in the mid-1990s. There were no ovens. No steamers.
Still, to deliver as soon as possible on promises to bring real, or "true" foods into lunchrooms, Mr. Weber and his team began installing salad bars in some of the city's schools. To pay for the first few, he tapped into his existing budget, but then quickly began seeking grants and other outside sources of revenue to cover the expenses.
As of last month, half the district's schools were offering the fresh-produce carts, which feature items such as spinach, cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, pears, three-bean salad, and couscous salad.
"It was important for us to get kids off fruit wrapped in plastic packages," he said. "And it was a way to get skeptical parents paying for their kids to eat lunch at school again."
Mr. Weber also began making immediate changes to the menus. Hot dogs were sourced from a local cattle company that raises grass-fed beef and were served on buns baked by school district cooks. And Tater Tot hot dish—a beloved school lunch item in Minnesota—was revamped to be cooked from scratch by the district's head chef in the central kitchen and assembled by school-based cafeteria staff.

But beyond parents, Mr. Weber had two other critical groups to persuade to embrace his vision for real food: students and his food-services staff.
To reel in students—especially hard-to-impress teenagers—he decided to test new recipes and menu items one day a week in select schools. Students at one high school quickly dubbed Thursdays "Real Food Day" and were enthusiastic about many of the new offerings like Asian cole slaw and fresh-baked ciabatta bread.
A year and a half later, lunchroom meals in some high schools have become so popular that students who usually left campus for lunch are staying, but not everyone who wants to eat in the cafeteria can because of time and space constraints.
"We're maxed out in our high schools," he said.
Mr. Weber said the biggest pushback he got initially came from older employees in food services and the union that represents them."Some people worried we were making too many changes that were affecting people who had been here a long time," he said.
To help ease the transition, Mr. Weber offered culinary classes and prep-cook training for staff members who needed support in moving away from the assembly-line approach to food service.

Attracting Customers

Bernadeia H. Johnson, the superintendent in Minneapolis, credits Mr. Weber for "revolutionizing" school lunches in the district.
"Our students are eating healthier meals that keep them satisfied for a day of quality learning and instruction," she said in a statement. "Lunch menus are full of variety and often introduce students to new and different fresh ingredients, including foods that reflect the ethnicities of our students."
Since Mr. Weber started just over two years ago, overall participation in the district's meals program has grown from 58 percent to 66 percent, most of it among the 35 percent of students who pay full price. Participation among those who qualify for free- and reduced-price meals has also ticked up, from 72.5 percent in 2011 to 87.5 percent. To help pay for the array of food and nutrition initiatives spearheaded by Mr. Weber, lunch prices have been raised by a dime,but only for students who pay full price. Mr. Weber also has begun serving breakfast in classrooms in 20 schools, with plans to expand.
With 30 more salad bars to install and most schools still without kitchens and equipment to do on-site cooking, though, Mr. Weber and his team have hustled to raise private money to keep their momentum going. A local fitness company and General Mills are among the benefactors who are backing the efforts.
He's also found creative ways to buy local, organically raised food products within his budget.
Among the 60,000 pounds of local produce he bought for the district last fall was one farmer's entire kale crop, damaged in a hail storm.

"We were going to chop it up anyway," he said. "And it gave us a healthy vegetable to introduce to our kids."
Mr. Weber has also drawn on his deep connections to local chefs and restaurant owners to persuade them to get involved in recipe development for the district. In turn, the chefs have agreed to endorse the recipes they create for school lunches on their own menus.

"He's getting great support and publicity for what he's doing," said Ms. Ronnei of the St. Paul district. "Chefs endorsing school food? What a message that sends to the community."

Coverage of leadership, expanded learning time, and arts learning is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

Wordware, Inc. - School lunch Software Computer Payment ... www.wordwareinc.com/

End Summer Child Hunger Now!

• Marian Wright Edelman President, Children’s Defense Fund

  
  

nata_vkusidey via Getty Images

Spring is almost in full swing and summer is just around the corner. Millions of children in America can’t wait for summer vacation, but for millions of poor children who rely on school meals it’s a mixed blessing.

I qualify for free and reduced lunch. I can get a free breakfast, I can get like a muffin, juice, anything like that, in the morning, and then lunch, I don’t have to pay, so I can get whatever I wanted for lunch. So I’ve always been able to eat at school for lunch and breakfast.

Linda Ransom is a Columbus, Ohio high school senior and the winner of a Children’s Defense Fund Beat the Odds^® scholarship whose family struggles to make ends meet. When Linda was seven her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and the medical crisis led to a family financial crisis. Linda’s mother lost her job, and with a mountain of medical bills is still trying to catch up ten years later. They’ve been homeless for stretches of time. Food has often been beyond their means. Linda says, “If we didn’t have any food at home, I knew I could get some at school, and sometimes I could take a couple things from the breakfast line and I could just save it for later, so when I got home, if I was hungry, I could eat it.”

Hunger doesn’t take a summer vacation and poor children like Linda who rely on free and reduced price breakfast and lunch during the school year to keep the wolves of hunger at bay face a long summer of food deprivation. “It was hard without school during the summer, but being able to qualify for something like food stamps or having a food pantry near us, that helped a lot,” Linda says, but at the end of the month, “it was kind of like a hit-or-miss kind of situation.” 

Hit or miss. No child in rich America should go hungry this or any summer, especially when 100 percent federally funded summer feeding programs are available if local officials and communities apply for or use them. But more than 1 in 4 families with children are food insecure and struggling to keep food on the table. The federal Summer Nutrition Programs could help millions more children escape hunger this summer by providing meals if responsible adults act now. The need is urgent. Although 19.7 million children received free or reduced price lunches during the 2013-2014 school year, only 3.2 million children – 16.2 percent – participated in the Summer Nutrition Programs.

If local school boards, community groups, faith congregations, mayors, and county representatives act now, they should be able to get 100 percent federally funded Summer Nutrition Programs in their area or add more if there already are some summer food sites. The federal Summer Food Service Program and the “Seamless Summer” option offered through the National School Lunch Program are designed to replace the regular school year breakfast and lunch programs. Meals provided through the Summer Nutrition Programs also can link children without summer learning opportunities, camps or other costly options to educational and recreational programming to keep them learning, active and safe during school vacation. Summer feeding programs also create jobs for food preparers, servers, bus drivers and others.

Schools, community recreation centers, playgrounds, parks, places of worship, day and residential summer camps, housing projects, migrant centers, and Native American reservations are among places that can serve as summer feeding program sites. Many more sites are needed to fill the summer hunger gap for millions of children. Far too many communities have no sites at all or have sites difficult for children without transportation to reach. Check in now with your school officials, mayors and county executives to learn what they are doing to prevent childhood hunger. Some questions to ask include:

• How many children receiving school year breakfasts and lunches will be served by Summer Food Service Programs?  What steps have they taken or will they take immediately to get more summer feeding sites up and running?
• How are parents notified about free summer food options?
• Are there district school buses that could be outfitted to deliver summer meals to inaccessible rural areas?
• How many weekend and holiday meal backpacks are provided to children within the Summer Food Service Programs? Has your school district reached out to seek community support for these backpacks?
• In districts with large percentages of children in housing projects, have you or local officials asked housing authorities to make sure they get food to hungry children?
• Are faith communities and service organizations with kitchens in your community aware of the 100 percent federally funded resources and planning to provide summer meals this summer? Do they know about the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools^® program that provides summer reading enrichment and food to stop summer learning loss and hunger among low-income children?

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been working very hard to reach more children and is testing exciting new ways to help overcome barriers blocking summer meals for hungry children. Some communities are using mobile vans to transport meals. Others use electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to transfer money to help families purchase extra food for children in the summer. When 4.9 million households, including 1.4 million with children, had no cash income in fiscal year 2014 and depended only on food stamps to stave off hunger, every public official, congregation, and school system needs to use every tool available to help keep children from going hungry over three long summer months.

Check the Summer Meals Toolkit on the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service’s Summer Feeding Service Program website to learn more about becoming a Summer Meal Champion in your community or call the National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-348-6479. There is no reason why there should be a single hungry child in America. Please act now before the school year ends to allow millions of children to take a real school vacation without hunger pains.

School Lunch Software Demo contact Wordware Inc.

Bearcat Diner – School Food Service Department – Kearney Public School

Bearcat Diner
Offices are located at Sunrise Middle School
4611 Avenue N Kearney Nebraska  68847,  308-698-8158
BEARCAT DINER MENUS

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Eat Your Fruits & Veggies

The Bearcat Diner receives a Grant each year through the USDA to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to students at Bryant, Central and Emerson Elementary Schools and KEC as a daily snack.

FUN FACTS

Did you know that…
• Unlike most fruits, pears ripen better off the tree.
• Figs provide more fiber than any other common fruit or vegetable.
• British sailors used to be called “Limeys” because they ate citrus fruits to prevent scurvy on long sea voyages.
• Some Chinese varieties of peaches are flat like donuts.
• Strawberries are the only fruit that have their seeds on the outside.
• Bell peppers can be green, red, yellow, orange or purple.
• Yams and sweet potatoes are not the same.
• Many of the nutrients in a potato are located just below the skin.
• Hawaii is the leading producer of bananas in the U.S.
• Lychee trees can live for more than 100 years.
• The first carrots were white, purple and yellow.
• Ancient Greeks awarded celery to winners of sports events.
• Broccoflower is a cross between cauliflower and broccoli. It has more vitamin C than oranges and more vitamin A than either broccoli or cauliflower.

The Bearcat Diner Mission Statement

The purpose of Kearney Public School’s Bearcat Diner is to prepare and serve nutritious and appealing meals that meet the dietary guidelines to students, staff, and community in a positive, cheerful manner, while maintaining financial soundness, and contributing to the quality and excellence of a student’s education experience.

NONDISCRIMINATION STATEMENT

“In accordance with Federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its Agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, ore reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA.
Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program (e.g. Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.), should contact the Agency (State or local) where applied for benefits. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. Additionally, program information made be made available in languages other than English.
To file a program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, (AD-3027) found online at: ttp://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint_filing_cust.html, and at any USDA office, or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by:
(1) Mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20250-9410
(2) Fax: (202) 690-7442; or
(3) Email: program.intake@usda.gov
This institution is an equal opportunity provider.
Bearcat Diner Office Location & Phone Number
4611 Ave N
Kearney, NE 68847
308-698-8158

Parent Information Letter	Free & Reduced Meal Application Instructions for Completing the Free & Reduced Application	Lunch Prices & Monthly Payment Schedule
Check your Diner Account Balance	Make an Online Payment to your Lunch Account through Efunds	Menus Healthy Changes in our School Cafeterias Healthy Changes-Spanish Version

St. Cecilia Academy - Lunch Program / Nutrition Information/ Family Software Login

Dining Hall

St. Cecilia Academy - Lunch Program / Nutrition Information/ Family Software Login

Nutrition plays an important role in education.  Students 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 St. Cecilia Dining Hall offers a wide variety of delicious and healthy menu selections along with the staples and favorites everyone loves. Students have the choice of a hot lunch bar that includes a main entrée and daily vegetable. During the Winter months, we add a selection of fresh made soups. In addition to the hot entrée bar, the Dining Hall also offers a full salad bar with items such as seasonal spring mix and chopped romaine, six varieties of fresh vegetables along with hummus, tuna salad, cottage cheese and fruit to name a few. For those days that a salad just won’t do, we offer 3 choices of pizza along with chicken tenders and French fries. Excess sugar is always a concern and for this reason, we do not offer daily desserts.  The students have the choice of variety of Blue Bell ice creams to choose from. Drink selections include bottled water, 2% milk, chocolate milk, orange, cranberry and apple juice, fresh ice tea, lemonade, coffee, hot tea, and hot chocolate.
The St. Cecilia Dining Hall utilizes the Wordware School Lunch System to manage lunch purchases and family accounts. Each family is assigned an account and payments can be made online after registering your account or by sending in a check or cash to the school office.
To log into your family Dining Hall account, follow the link below.  You will need your family ID number along with a pin number to register your account for the first time. If you do not know these numbers, please contact Kathleen Urciuoli at urciuolik@overbrook.edu.  Once your account is registered, you will receive balance notifications and be able to track daily purchases.

 

Lennox School District 41-4 Wordware School Lunch Software - Family Website Instructions

Wordware School Lunch Software - Family Website Instructions

Serving the communities of Chancellor, Lennox, and Worthing, South Dakota

Logging into Wordware Family Account With a web browser, go to ww.wordwareinc.com

 

Enter username and password and click on the SIGN IN button

This will bring you to the Account Dashboard home screen

Wordware School Lunch Software

School District of River Falls - School Lunch Program Wordware Family - School Lunch Software

Wordware Family - School Lunch Software 

School Lunch Program

Parents need to fill out the free and reduced lunch application on Infinite Campus

Food Service Money Collection Procedure

View School District Lunch Menus Here

...or, scan

the QR Code.

Nutrition Information/ Lunch Menu/ Lunch Calendar 

School District of River Falls

                      852 E. Division Street

River Falls, WI 54022

715-425-1800

Alcester-Hudson Schools - Instructions for Wordware Family Login / School Lunch Software

The Alcester-Hudson School District includes the rural communities of Alcester and Hudson located in southeast South Dakota.  This district encompasses 176 square miles including some of Union and Lincoln County. This district is an agricultural based community with newer settled families who are escaping from the large cities, as well as many life-long residents.

The Alcester-Hudson School serves approximately  281 students, with 153 in grades K-6, 42 in Junior High and 86 High School students.

The Alcester-Hudson Schools is  fully accredited by the South Dakota Department of Education and is a member of the Southeast Area Educational Co-op​.

Instructions for Wordware Family Login / School Lunch Software

Lunch Calender/ Lunch Menu / Nutrition Information

Keokuk Community School District Register for New School Lunch Software - Wordware LCS

Keokuk Community School District

Nutrition

The mission of the Food Service Department is to provide a variety of appealing, nutritious, and safe meals in an environment that is respectful of student and faculty needs with the commitment of a cost effective and efficient program.
NUTRITION STAFF
Sarah Wetzel, Food Services Supervisor
Phone: 319-526-3717
E-Mail: sarah.wetzel@keokukschools.org

Wordware

Wordware is our school lunch program where parents/guardians can access student meal information. One family account provides access to all students’ records in the family. Lunch balances in PowerSchool are not up-to-date. For accurate meal balances and transaction lists, sign in to your account at the Wordware Family Website.
To set up your Wordware Family Account you will need your family key. These are the instructions for creating your family account.
Click here to access the Wordware Family Website.

Iowa Eligibility for Free and Reduced Meals

Keokuk Community School District has made it easier for families to apply for free or reduced priced meals. You can download and complete an application in minutes.

• Students will obtain eligibility benefits faster
• Electronic submission ensures that the completed application reaches the district office quickly
• Secure and confidential

Download and print the Free/Reduced Lunch Program Application Form from the Student Registration page in the District Documents section.

Non-discrimination Statement

This explains what to do if you believe you have been treated unfairly. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits discrimination against its customers, employees, and applicants for employment on the bases of race, color, national origin, age, disability, sex, gender identity, religion, reprisal, and where applicable, political beliefs, marital status, familial or parental status, sexual orientation, or all or part of an individual’s income is derived from any public assistance program, or protected genetic information in employment or in any program or activity conducted or funded by the department. If you wish to file a Civil Rights program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, found at http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint_filing_cust.htmll or at any USDA office, or call (866) 632-9992 to request the form. You may also write a letter containing all of the information requested in the form. Send your completed complaint form or letter to us by mail at U.S. Department of Agriculture, Director, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence Avenue, S. W., Washington D.C. 20250-9410, by fax (202) 690-7442 or email at program.intake@usda.gov. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339; or (800) 845-6136 (Spanish). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. ”

Iowa Non-Discrimination Notice

“It is the policy of this CNP provider not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or religion in its programs, activities, or employment practices as required by the Iowa Code section 216.7and 216.9. If you have questions or grievances related to compliance with this policy by this CNP Provider, please contact the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, Grimes State Office Building, 400 E. 14th St., Des Moines, IA 50319-1004; phone number 515-281-4121, 800-457-4416; web site: https://icrc.iowa.gov/.”

Wellness Policy

The student wellness policy can be referenced in Board Policy (504.12).

School District of Menomonee Falls - School Nutrition Department - School Lunch Software

Dear Parents and Guardians,

The lunch and breakfast prices for the 2015 - 2016 school year are as follows:
Lunch Prices Breakfast Prices

Grades K – 5 Hot Lunch $2.10 Grades K – 5 Cold Breakfast $1.35
Grades 6 – 12 Hot Lunch $2.45 Grades 6 – 12 Cold Breakfast $1.40
Grades 9 – 12 Specialty Meal $2.75 Grades 9 – 12 Hot Breakfast $1.60 Reduced $0.40 Reduced $0.00
Adult Lunch $3.50 Adult Breakfast $2.25
Milk $0.40 Milk $0.40
Meeting the Healthy Guidelines

Every day at every school we offer a Garden Bar with fresh fruit and fresh vegetables to all hot lunch students! At North and MFHS daily salads are available with a variety of toppings on each lunch line. There is also a separate salad bar lunch line at the high school. We follow the National School Lunch Program regulations. We have all grains at 51% whole wheat. Weekly saturated fat is less than 10% of the total calories and zero trans-fat (this excludes naturally occurring fats). We offer a variety of milks including 1% white and fat free white, chocolate and strawberry. We also serve dark green, red/orange vegetables and beans weekly.

Family ID and Student Lunch Numbers

Your family ID number will remain the same year after year. Student and staff lunch ID numbers will also remain the same year after year.

SEE WHAT YOUR KIDS ARE EATING! Access your Family Lunch Account Online

Go to your school’s website. On the left hand side of the page, click “Meal Menus/Online Payments”. This is the link to the School Nutrition’s web page. Scroll down to click “Family Lunch Account Information”. The first time you log in, you will need your Family Key to register with Wordware, the Lunch Cashier System. Call 262-250-6462 to request your Family Key. Once you have registered with Wordware, you will then use your email address and a password you create to log in. We will never know your password, so write it down! This site shows your balance, deposits, detailed statement of what your child/ren are eating and lets you set your own low balance email notification level. You can also find the lunch and breakfast menus and nutritional information on the School Nutrition’s web page.

www.wordwareinc.com

https://family.wordwareinc.com/

https://district.wordwareinc.com


Lunch Payments- Please DO NOT include lunch money with any other school fees or dues!


Parents can still make on-line lunch account payments. Directions are found on your school’s website under “Meal Menus/Online Payments” then “General Meal Information and Forms”. There is a $2.75 convenience fee for online payments. Parents can also pay by check. Checks should be made payable to Menomonee Falls School Nutrition. Payments can also be mailed to the attention of the School Nutrition Department, Menomonee Falls High School, W142 N8101 Merrimac Drive, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051. Please do not send cash payments. Sending cash can cause problems. If the cash gets lost, it is very difficult to track down. Payments can be sent to school with your student as well. Your student can give the payment to the school secretary in the front office. He/she can also give it to a school nutrition employee in the cafeteria. Only at the High School do we accept cash for purchases for both hot lunch and ala-carte items. We do not accept cash in the hot lunch lines at any of the other schools. If a student brings cash, we have to take time out to put it in an envelope and then mark the student’s name, family ID and the amount on it for a payment. This slows down the lunch lines! Always remember to put your Family ID number on the check! If the family
name is different than the student’s name, please also write the student’s full name on the check. We would again recommend depositing $25.00 or more per student at a time. Our office requires a minimum of two business days to record payments.

Low or Negative balances.

We send out automated E-mail notifications. We start notifying the family when the account hits $5.00. Depending on the number of students in your account and if your student purchases ala-carte, it is possible your lunch account could go from a positive balance to a negative balance in one day. If we have your e-mail address in your account, you will get an automated e-mail, when your account is low. If you want a higher low balance level than $5.00, change your setting at Wordware under “Family Account” then “Change Settings – Notifications”. If you are not getting e-mails, contact us in the School Nutrition Department and we will try to help you. It is the responsibility of the family to keep their lunch account in the positive.

School Board Policy 761
According to board policy, if your family lunch account falls to a negative $2.00, the school nutrition personnel may give your student an alternative lunch. This lunch will consist of one serving of fruit, vegetables and a milk. You will not be charged for the alternative lunch for the first two days. On the third day, and thereafter, you will be charged $1.00 for each alternative lunch.

Free and Reduced Lunches
Families who are having financial difficulties are encouraged to apply for the Free/Reduced Meal Program offered throughout our district. These benefits are completely confidential. Only one Free/Reduced form per family is needed. Send it to the School Nutrition Department at the High School where it will be processed. Forms are found online on our School Nutrition web page under “General Meal Information and Forms” or at your school, if needed. Free and reduced families will be charged $.40 for milk, if your student brings a cold lunch, or you can supply your own drink. Free and reduced students must take a complete hot lunch to receive the free or reduced benefit or ala carte pricing will be charged at your expense. If your family receives public assistance, you may already be directly certified for free lunch through the state. We will mail your notification to you, if you qualify for the Direct Certification and then no paper application will be needed from your family.

Ala Carte items are available at ALL schools

The most common elementary school ala carte items are the extra entrée and the juice box. North Middle School and the High School have many more ala-carte choices available with options like healthy snacks. If your account has a negative balance, ala-carte purchases will not be permitted to be charged to your account. If your student is not blocked from ala carte purchases, your account will be charged, if these items are taken. Fill out the “Extras and Ala Carte Restriction Form” to prevent these purchases found on our School Nutrition web page under “General Meal Information and Forms”.

Thank you for your support of the school lunch program. As always, we continue to strive to improve our program so that we can serve you more efficiently and effectively. If you have any questions or concerns about the program please call us. If at any time you would like a detailed statement of your family account feel free to call 262-250-6461 or 262-250-6462.

Sincerely,

Ruth Ann Kiley-Wiedmeyer
Food Service Director
School District of Menomonee Falls
School Nutrition Department

Do you have family lunch system in your school yet? No ! Checkout Wordware Inc Cafeteria Program name Lunch Cashier System.

 This system allows parents to do payment for the entire family through one student. Wordare, Inc. provides e-Funds For Schools to allow families to choose a couple of different online payment options for student lunch accounts. Parents may choose to have payments automatically withdrawn electronically from your checking account or charged to your credit card. There is a convenience fee for using this program.

The Lunch Cashier System allows the Schools' food service department to manage the application process and establish student accounts accordingly in compliance with federal regulations also Students from families whose income is below designated levels and foster children are eligible for free meals or meals at a reduced rate using this system.

To determine if a family qualifies, the family must complete an application. One application per family is necessary and may be completed any time during the year. If a family participated in this program in the past, a new application must be completed each year.

Public Schools are now able to take advantage of this low-cost and reliable communications system to alert our families electronically of balances in their family meal accounts. Also you can access your current account information online – anytime.
Wordware partner with Efunds, Convenient Payments, EduTrak Software, FEEZEE  For Schools accepts payments at any time for unlimited school services from multiple payment platforms. The convenience and flexibility of e-Funds For Schools will help to eliminate last minute check writing hassles and improve efficiencies with your student lunch account. Plus, you will no longer need to worry that your children could lose or forget the money intended for deposit in the school lunch program.
With eFunds you are in full control of your account and can make a payment at any time that is convenient for you. No payments will be allowed without your knowledge and authorization through this secure payment system. By providing your home and/or work email address, an email notification informing you of the student’s name, purpose of the payment, and the amount of payment will be sent to you each time that a payment is to be processed.

This is the only and only family concept based system for you school cafeteria.

District Schools Highly Satisfied With Lunch Cashier System Cafeteria Software’s performance and customer support - School Food Service Directors

The Wordware mission with Lunch Cashier system for School District 's  is to actively contribute to the health of children, district staff, lunch cafeteria staff, students and other eligible customers by preparing, marketing and food service cafeteria software application.. Nutritious meals will be offered at a free and reduced price for eligible students while maintaining a financially accountable program.

Wordware Lunch Cashier system assists with your staff and parents to the new lunchroom software and is always here to help with any questions that may come up encounter while the process or after implementation Schools quickly learned how helpful our team is from the beginning and they are pleased with the technical support being provided by wordware’s experienced and dedicated technical staff. Wordware Support Team set up the software for the schools and provide training to your school staff up to the level they needed to learn the ins and outs of our school cafeteria software. From the launch of the new software, School Food Service Directors, was happy  that Wordware Lunch Cashiersystem would be an excellent fit for the children in their school.

“The implementation team and trainers did a great job getting us set up and ready for the first day of school,” say many of our valuable customers. Furthermore, their Staff have not encountered any problems, but they called for general questions. Customer care representative attends the phones calls promptly and guide them with confidence in using the lunchroom management software than before. They all are extremely satisfied that with the of wordware customer support team.

"There are many reasons why using Wordware for our lunch software has made my job easier. The remote support and ticket system have been a life saver on many occasions. The Direct Certification is simplified and the Free and Reduced timeline has kept me on track. The upgrade to the LCS1000 Mayflower has everything I need on the family dashboard for quick and easy reference. There are letter templates that can be customized by you and the numerous reporting options available are a tremendous help in documenting the daily and monthly transaction activities." - Jean Erd, School District of Menomonee Falls

The Lunch Cashier System by Wordware, Inc. is a complete, affordable, user-friendly meal accounting system for schools, including back-office and point-of-sale management software. Lunch Cashier System is one of the Top Food Service Management Software. They provide comprehensive solutions to both school administration and food service staff. Computerized Lunch Program for school cafeterias, State and Federal reporting. Parents only need to send lunch money to one family account for all family members participating in the lunch program.