Over TLT’s spring break, several people sent me a link to a Chicago Tribune story entitled “Miracle Worker in the School Kitchen,” a story which got a lot of play on Twitter and in the blogging world right after it appeared. The article features Paul Boundas, a chef who has taken over the school food at Holy Trinity High School in Wicker Park and is serving meals like “white [fish] fillets . . . in a crunchy panko-cornmeal crust or baked in olive oil, lemon and herbs, with collard-flecked teriyaki brown rice, olive oil roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli and freshly squeezed lemonade.” Sounds amazing, right?
Even more amazing:
It’s become accepted wisdom among many school officials that the level of federal reimbursement for meals served through the program — $2.74 per lunch — is too low to cover tasty, nutritious food made from scratch. But chef Paul Boundas says he serves his scratch-cooked meals to about 4,500 private school students — including about 300 at Holy Trinity — every day for even less than that modest amount.
Whenever I see stories like this, in which a school or a school district seems to be doing something “miraculous,” I’m immediately skeptical. Not because I don’t want to believe that such “miracles” can happen, but because I’ve spent enough time immersed in this issue in my own district to know that there are many real world obstacles — notably labor costs, the lack of facilities and the cost of buying and storing fresh food — which make such miracles very hard to replicate in many school districts in America.
I tweeted Monica Eng, the reporter behind this story, to ask follow-up questions about this particular school’s circumstances, but she hasn’t yet replied to me. In the meantime, I turned to my most trusted resource for “real world” school food information, San Francisco school food reformer Dana Woldow. Dana had already seen the story and wrote back the following thoughts to me (edited a bit here):
How many kids does this school or program serve? The answer in this case is 280 in a small Catholic high school. There are things you can do in a small school (like feed all the kids in one lunch period) that don’t work when scaled up to a school trying to feed a population of 2,000 kids in 40 minutes. What do they pay their labor? This is a private parochial school (ie – likely not union). What are the school’s kitchen facilities like, as compared to the typical public school serving a 93% low income population, and how were they paid for? Are they an open campus at lunchtime? Probably not, and when you keep the kids on campus for lunch, cafeteria participation soars. And has their program passed a recent inspection by the USDA? Just a few questions to raise. . . .
Dana then told me that she was coincidentally putting the finishing touches on an article for her soon-to-be launched website (more on that exciting development to come!), entitled, ”How to Know If Your School Can Do What Another School Does.” And guess what? She is allowing The Lunch Tray to publish the piece as a guest blog post, coming your way later today.
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My daughter attends a small (secular) private school. One of the teachers is a friend, so I know how little they get paid, and only the teacher can get any benefits at all –there is no family package. Her teachers are dedicated and passionate about what they do, but they couldn’t do it really, if they didn’t have spouses who were making a better-than-living wage.
I don’t know what wages are like in a religious school, but I’d bet labor costs are very low in most non-union school environments.
Renee – right. It’s stuff like that that reporters often leave out of the “miracle” stories. As I say to CRP below, whatever we can learn from these stories, we absolutely should put to use. But they can also be misleading, and cause people to get furious at their school districts without understanding how the status quo came to be. Thanks as always for commenting on TLT! I love your input.
It’s good to see that you’re questioning the possibilities of the “miracle.” Before reading your post, I too took it as some great thing that everyone should be doing. However, your questions brought up a few of my own.
It’s pointed out that many schools are much bigger than those in the initial article and that understandably makes it tougher logistically. However, aren’t the majority of schools in the US on the smaller side? Maybe not 200 students small, but while we do have tons of large cities with big schools, there are also those in the country and suburbs that could possibly start implementing these options more easily and setting an example.
Thanks for inspiring my thoughts!
CRP – When I first got into this, I would hear stories about Revolution Foods or Chef Ann Cooper and think, what’s WRONG with my district that we can’t be doing that?? And then I started to dig in further and saw that what works in Berkeley might not work in Houston, etc.. I think these success stories are wonderful and inspiring, and as you say, whatever CAN be exported to other districts, should be. Definitely read Dana Woldow’s follow-up guest post (the link is here. She lays the details out better than I ever could.
As Ms. Woldow points out, “This is a private parochial school” Therefore, their meal offering is not restricted to any of the USDA nutrition requirements. This allows for great flexibility in meal planning and service. I also wonder if the meal plan is “full participatory” meaning that students can only eat in the lunchroom and can not bring in “outside food.” That aspect of private school food service is so very helpful in terms of budgeting and planning.
All that said, Chef Boundas’ food sounds lovely!
If you have questions regarding Holy Trinity High School and our lunch program, i.e – our school facilities and our students- who are 90% below the poverty line, feel free to contact me. I can put you in contact directly with Paul Boundas. Thank you!
Susan: Please see this correction, and I appreciate the offer to speak with Chef Boundas. I may take you up on it! – Bettina
It was my understanding from the article that this school participates in the National School Lunch Program (it isn’t limited to just public schools); if they do participate, then they are subject to all of the same requirements as a regular public school. However, I found this article a little fuzzy on details so I could be reading it incorrectly.
For whatever it’s worth, that was my impression, too, Dana – that they’re in the NSLP. A lot of people don’t realize that even nonpublic schools can participate.
Thanks for the post. I actually had many of the same questions – with the largest question being the cost of labor in a private school vs. CPS which has some of the highest labor costs in the country. I’ll look forward to seeing if you learn more. My biggest issue with the article is the juxtaposition that the author makes (mostly implicit because of the frequency of her negative stories about CPS school food) between this and CPS without telling any of the positive changes that have been going on in the Chicago Public Schools. I have no doubts that Holy Trinity does great work, but it’s an apples to oranges comparison with a district that serves 400,000 meals a day.
Mark – I know what you mean. Houston ISD is also making slow but steady progress and I feel it doesn’t always get enough press. If you have links to share re: Chicago, feel free to send them on. And thanks for retweeting this story, btw!
Your posts always get my wheels turning and I can’t help but begin to think about the “what ifs.” What if we could pilot a scratch kitchen in one of the smaller schools with one lunch period (they do exist)? Or what if we could pilot a scratch kitchen at a large school with more than one kitchen and a singular lunch period (that exist also I think)? What if we could pilot a scratch kitchen with students in a culinary program?
We if we could get really courageous and creative if even on a small scale and be ready to scrap it if it doesn’t work.
Dale – So glad to see you here! You’ll be happy to know that I just interviewed Chef Boundas and will post that in the coming week, I hope. My feeling right now is that we might well have success on a pilot basis in a school with a kitchen, but what about the many, many schools in HISD that don’t have such facilities? We’re never going to be able to go back to on-site cooking again, at least not on a wide scale, now that the central kitchen is a reality. And there are arguments for and against central kitchens — another thing I want to examine in depth in the coming days.
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