What's for Lunch? District 68 Schools Watching Dollars, Diets

What's for Lunch? is a five-part series taking an in-depth look at District 68's school lunch program. This is the first installment. Learn more about the full series by

As the nutrition and quality of school-provided meals has been called into question in recent years, Woodridge School District 68 is trying to address the issue by finding a balance between healthy food and bulging budgets.

While the number of children attending school has increased dramatically in recent decades, schools have had to adapt the way they feed students. With the increase in childhood obesity and health consciousness in the country, schools are being called on to provide students with nutritional food, despite the simultaneous need to tighten their own fiscal belt buckles.

Moser said achieving nutritional meals with limited funds serves up quite a challenge for local schools. Given current budget constraints, she said it’s not possible for local schools to have lunches cooked from scratch through a food service or for them to have a staff of cooks, dietitians and servers on hand.

In a more cost-effective option, the district currently contracts with Preferred Meal Systems as its food service provider. Menu items are prepared at Preferred Meal Systems’ facility, individually portioned and sealed, delivered to local schools, heated and served.

Although that's the plan for now, District 68 has made it to review the food service program during the 2011-2012 school year to determine if there are viable alternative options.

From contract to cafeteria

About 40 percent of District 68's students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, according to Kevin Wegner, assistant superintendent for business at District 68. That's about 1,200 students who could rely strictly on the district for food during the day.

Between 45 to 50 percent of District 68 students participate in the school lunch program on a daily basis, according to Diane Moser, District 68 lunch program assistant.

With all of those mouths to feed, District 68 serves close to 1,200 meals each day or 200,000 meals per school year.

The district’s food service contracts go out to bid every five years. Although budget parameters play a key role, potential vendors also are reviewed for demonstrating the following criteria:

• Experience with nutrition guidelines established by the National School Lunch Program
• Ability to meet nutritional requirements of the Federal Meal Program and district wellness policy
• A minimum of five years of experience providing 12,500 meals per month to another school food program
• Corporate and financial stability, with credit and background checks obtained
• Contract termination history when applicable, including an outline of the circumstances of termination by another district

Still, the biggest factor in selecting a food service provider remains the cost, and the lowest bid often is the one that is accepted. Awarded contracts continue to be reviewed annually for changes in menu items, adherence to NSLP guidelines, and price, which tends to increase annually.

“Yearly increase is determined by the (Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers) for Food Away from Home. For the 2011-12 school year, the increase is 1.3 percent,” Wegner said.

Preferred Meal Systems submits to the school district monthly menus, ingredients, nutritional breakdowns, calorie and nutrient standards, product specification sheets and additional information. Moser said monthly menus are posted on the district Web site for parents to view.

National School Lunch Program

Established by President Harry Truman in 1946, the NSLP is a federally assisted meal system that operates in public and nonprofit schools, as well as within residential child care institutions. Its objective is to provide low-cost or free, nutritionally balanced meals to children at school each day.

The program also ensures that meals being served in participating schools contain one-third of the recommended dietary allowance of necessary nutrients. The NSLP’s beliefs assert that if children are hungry they cannot learn, and studies align academic achievement with good nutrition.

The NSLP also provides meals for children when their families would otherwise be unable to afford the expense.

“All seven of the schools within our district participate in the lunch program,” Moser said. “Lunch costs range from $2.45 to $2.60 for grammar and junior-high schools respectively.”

Despite the district’s tight budget, the NSLP reimburses only a portion of the costs for most meals—26 cents for paid meals, $2.32 for reduced-price meals and $2.72 for free meals.

Adding to the district’s fiscal challenges, NSLP reimbursement is distributed by the state, from which payments have been lagging. So far this year, District 68 has only been reimbursed for about 53 percent of the money they’ve spent on the food service program.

“For the 2010-11 school year through February, the district has spent $357,535 on the food service program, and has received only $189,429 in reimbursement from the National School Lunch Program,” Wegner said.

Wegner said districts choose to be in the program if they have "enough poverty students" and could stand to benefit from receiving reimbursements for those meals.

Wealthier schools don't participate in the program as much because they can get by without those reimbursements and have more freedom with their lunch programs. 

Going forward

The district unveiled its five-year strategic planning goals March 15. The goals are organized into communication, curriculum and instruction, technology, personnel and finance.

One of the finance goals states, "During the 2011-2012 school year, the business office will review the food service program to determine if alternate viable options are available."

Wegner said concerns over the district's school lunch program were common during the strategic planning process.

"When we were going to PTO's and conducting focus groups, parents asked us why we offered what we offer," Wegner said.

"They were concerned that it was not quality enough. They wanted things more like salad bars and fresh vegetables. They said what we were offering was not as nutritious as it should be."

Wegner said the district's options are more limited because of the restrictions in the National Lunch Program. But he said he thought offering a salad bar at Jefferson Jr. High might be a viable option.

Calories and nutrient levels for the traditional food-based menu planning approach in the national school lunch program(school week average)

* Total fat not to exceed 30 percent over a school week

** Saturated fat to be less than 10 percent over a school week.

*** The grams of fat will vary depending on actual level of calories offered.

In our next article within the series of What's for Lunch, we’ll take a closer look at:

• What the kids think of the food being served in their schools