Not every school district offers bagels with lox, bento bowls, or challah French toast like Rye City Schools do – however, administrators say those options could be no more if the district enrolls in the National School Lunch Program.
At the request of community members, the district’s food service team has been exploring what exactly admission into the program would entail, and this month advised the Board of Education that it would be no small feat.
“These are huge changes for the students in the high school and middle school,” Gabriella Perruccio, assistant superintendent for business and operations, told board members.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program reimburses partner schools for the meals they offer students at low or zero cost. However, there are strict guidelines districts must follow in order to qualify for reimbursement.
Breakfasts can’t exceed a per-meal cost of $2.56, while lunches can’t exceed a per-meal cost of $4.60.
“That becomes your revenue stream – so all of our labor, food, materials, costs to produce those meals have to fit within that,” Perruccio said. “So, some of the current items that we offer (that) we sell at a higher price point would not fit in that equation.”
Some of Rye’s highest-cost food service items include the bagel bar, bento boxes, acai bowls, sushi, and the crepe station, among others.
In addition to fitting within the financial parameters, all meals would have to adhere to strict nutritional guidelines, including age-based portion control standards.
For example, the district would have to stop serving challah French toast, since the bread doesn’t come in whole grain form. And instead of students serving themselves at the pasta bar, food monitors would have to ensure each student was only taking the approved portion of each pasta and topping.
And even further, if a student refused to take a particular component with their meal, such as a vegetable, the district would either have to come up with a nutritional substitute, or charge the student since the meal technically wouldn’t meet the correct requirements.
Stacey Falcone, the Rye City Schools director of food service, said enrolling in the program would greatly limit the district’s offerings, as well as give students less agency over the kinds and amount of food they’re eating.
The district played around with making bagels in-house recently, she said, which wasn’t the most popular idea, but, she said, “it gives us the opportunity to at least try different things and to try to offer more scratch items.”
Falcone added that, in her experience, Rye has one of the best food service programs in the area.
“Every local school district would come here to try to mimic our food service operation,” she said. “There’s nothing like what we have here, out there. I’m really proud to say that.”
The current food service program comes at a cost for families. High school students are charged anything from $1 to $5 for each breakfast, and an average of about $6.50 per lunch. That can add up to more than $200 per month if students eat both breakfast and lunch at school every day.
Jennifer Boyle, vice president of the Board of Education, said it doesn’t hurt looking in to the district’s current nutritional guidelines. However, she said a complete overhaul may not be the best thing for students.
“Making massive shifts like it seems like we’re talking about, would be a pretty shocking experience, I think, for the kids who have become used to a certain type of food,” she said.
The board has not taken any action on changing the food service program.
