From a recent article in The Bay Citizen I learned that about two dozen small, affluent public schools in the California Bay Area have opted out of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and instead have hired small catering companies (such as Choicelunch and Kid Chow) to provide their students’ meals. The result: lunches that are appealing to kids and parents, often produced in a sustainable manner — and which are priced to actually bring more money back into the schools.
How is this possible? Unlike a large urban district like my own, where close to 90% of children qualify for free/reduced price lunch, in these affluent areas only a handful of children are economically disadvantaged. So long as a school agrees to subsidize these children, it allowed to opt out of the NSLP, a system under which most schools are confined to spending around one dollar per meal on food, and cannot, under NSLP rules, legally make a profit.
Instead, children in these upscale districts are getting lunches that can cost parents up to $6.25 each, and include such premium items as sushi, edamame, pot stickers, and organic fruits and vegetables. Served with the help of parent volunteers, the lunches raise a dollar or more per meal, providing schools with needed funds for other programs like sports and the arts.
It’s certainly a win-win situation for these schools, but it also creates a disturbing picture of rich kids nibbling on sushi and having enough money for the team uniforms, while poor kids in a neighboring district are not only getting eating subpar food, they’re often selling candy and other junk food to raise money for those same uniforms, further contributing to poor health habits that may last a lifetime. Yet all of these children are enrolled in the same state’s public school system, an arena where we might hope to see a more equitable playing field.
I realize, of course, that there have always been sharp disparities between schools in affluent areas and poor areas — reflected in the quality of teachers, the availability of materials, the curricula, facilities and more. But this news story got my wheels turning: I started to wonder if anyone has ever considered somehow rejiggering the National School Lunch Program to better reflect the fact that schools are not in fact equal when it comes to resources.
For example, what if districts with lower property values received more federal reimbursement dollars for school meals than districts with higher property values, with the affluent districts making up the difference via a higher lunch price for paying students? That way, poorer schools — which will never be able to opt out of the NSLP (or receive the outside community funding that places like Chef Ann’s Boulder, CO district can raise) — will have more money to work with when purchasing school meals, whereas richer districts can rely on community support to purchase better food — either overtly by passing around the hat as Chef Ann does, or implicitly through a higher lunch price that the population can afford.
I’m certainly no policy wonk and my idea probably has more holes than Swiss cheese. But as we discussed a while back (see “Why I Just Rained on Someone’s School Food Reform Parade,” the posts linked to it and the many comments), the last thing I want to see is an ever- growing divide between rich and poor kids when it comes to being able to eat a healthful meal in a public school lunch room.
Let me know what you think about all this.
Venkat Koripalli says
Bettina,
Good information as always. School Districts can choose to opt out of the NSLP and there is a real danger that they will do exactly that if they are unable or if it is unprofitable to comply with the new proposed guidelines.
It would be great if students and parents in all school districts could afford $6 meals or if USDA doubled its lunch reimbursement to districts. Equality between all school districts is never going to happen with population demographics and property values determining the resources available to most schools. HISD schools overall are just at a disadvantage when compared to schools in Katy or Fort Bend or these Bay Area school districts and it is not likely to change. Even though I like the idea of “rejiggering” NSLP, I doubt there is a way to do it in a way that fair and equitable to everybody.
Annette Fuentes says
Thanks for tip of the hat, Bettina. Good to find your blog, too. Please check out my latest reporting on the effort to improve school food in Oakland: http://www.baycitizen.org/health/story/school-chefs-lesson-healthy-cooking/
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Annette; I’ve been catching up on the whole series in The Bay Citizen and will share more of those stories with readers here. I like how many different angles of the school food world are being covered. – Bettina
Justin Gagnon says
Bettina,
We’ve been following you for a while over here, and were excited to see us come across your radar. I’m the Founder and CEO of Choicelunch, but more importantly a father of three and a passionate advocate for changing the way our kids eat.
Just to give you an idea of what we do – the core of our customers are small and medium sized public and private schools (or districts) that typically do not have the adequate infrastructure to cook from scratch or the economies of scale in their buying power to source our level of ingredients. In most cases, the meal program is entirely voluntary participation (as you pointed out, low NSLP eligibility), and parents are either using our service, sending meals from home, or more often than not, a combination of the two.
We have a higher price point, which allows us to offer a higher quality meal and a much wider variety of entree choices to our schools (yes, including hand-rolled sushi). We also give the schools the ability to fund-raise by allowing the school to set the sell price and collect the difference between our contracted price and the price to the parent. I can see how this would invoke the vision of rich kids nibbling on sushi and funding their uniform budget, but there are a few important things to note:
1) The programs we’re replacing are using already making money, and often making more money. We’ve gone into schools where the predecessor meal program is moms going to Costco for fruit juice and cheddar bunnies and picking up burritos in their car from Del Taco or getting Subway sandwiches. And they’re raking in tens of thousands of dollars doing this. But there’s no cohesion to programs like this – no one running nutritional analysis on the entree, compiling allergen statements to let parents know what kids with sensitivities should avoid, and very little raw ingredient sourcing.
2) There are very few districts that can opt out of NSLP entirely. Almost all of our public school districts deal with F&R eligibility in some way. Several participate in NSLP, with Choicelunch offering a reduced price for eligible students and the difference between the NSLP reimbursement and our reduced price funded through the full paid meals. Others don’t participate in NSLP, but still have quite a few students who they provide free lunch for (again, at a reduced rate from Choicelunch) with funding coming from paid students.
3) Free and reduced eligibility is higher than people think, even in affluent areas. We serve districts in Marin that have 9% and 12% F&R eligibility. Even Beverly Hills Unified (who we don’t currently service) has 7%. Yes, Piedmont is one of the very, very rare districts with 0% F&R eligibility, but we’re talking about a 6 school district with less than 1,100 students.
4) Income eligibility guidelines and reimbursement rates are national (except AK and HI on the latter), and do not take into account regional cost of living differences. If you based F&R dollars on property values, of course metropolitan Californian districts are going to get less money. But people with similar standards of living who are eligible in less costly regions of the country may not eligible in the Bay Area because it takes more income to maintain that same standard, and therefore their income level doesn’t meet the guidelines. In relative terms, those eligible in California really, REALLY need it, put just because you’re not eligible doesn’t mean you’re rich.
I think school food boils down to one thing – it just costs more to do it right. Many schools in middle to upper-middle class neighborhoods have high enough F&R eligibility that they have to participate in NSLP. But the problem they face is they then have to craft menus that pencil within the government reimbursement. Only it’s not nearly enough money, so the food quality isn’t there to attract full-paid students, let alone to justify a higher price point that the district can then use to put back into the food. And the cycle perpetuates.
Ugh, and I can’t even begin to tell you about how brutal the SMI review process for NSLP reimbursement is for a scratch program with several entree choices a day. It’s almost like scratch cooking causes the system to overload and start smoking. It’s much easier for a state auditor to analyze a menu and production records for a meal where the entree is a corn dog wrapped in cellophane instead of a stir-fry with a complex recipe of base sauces and raw ingredients prepared from scratch. And when you’re doing as many as 17 entree choices a day in the same methodology as that stir-fry, the paperwork and administrative load of an audit is nothing short of ridiculous. It’s no wonder schools just heat and serve – it’s the path of least resistance. But that’s a discussion for another day.
My apologies for posting a novel in the comments section here. You’re asking all the right questions about what it will take to really reform school lunch. The answer is going to be found in the middle ground between the status quo and what many reformers are advocating for.
Keep up the great work!
-Justin
Michelle says
A few years late for commenting on this but it is still relevant as I am wondering if dropping the NSMP is the right thing for my district. We are about 15% free and reduced but the regulations are stifling. Thank you Justin for stating all the challenges of the meal program more eloquently than I could have. I am a former chef and do the best I can but you are spot on and I can see now why some of my fellow directors have “followed the path of least resistance”. Very little time to focus on getting creative with food with the many hats that a school foodservice director has, one of the most difficult being dealing with union employees that are sub par and having few options.
Bettina, there is so much more to what we do. Low income districts are traditionally the districts “with money” in reserves due to the “captive audience” of large numbers of students that eat there. In addition, because of Title I they receive more money for education than higher income schools. Low income schools are eligible (and get) all the grants monies for fruit/veg programs, equipment, etc. Higher income schools are left with the task of following meal guidelines that their customer base reject and working hard to find a happy medium for all. Higher income families already donate large amounts, pass parcel taxes and bonds to get facilities up to par. There is no black and white when you are speaking of being fair. Suggesting that those that have worked hard to achieve some financial success should now also subsidize school meals more than they do now would hardly be fair either.
I also noticed in all of your school food sites you do not list the School Nutrition Association. We are a highly educated and dedicated work force that are doing the work at the sites. The disconnect is typical as the media enjoys portraying us as overweight cafeteria lady’s who slop food on plates. It is disappointing that we continually are shown a lack of acknowledgement for the experience and actual knowledge of how school food works. I was taught to always ask the experts, but when it comes to food and school lunch everyone is I guess…
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Michelle — thanks for adding to this discussion and I’m sorry for my delayed reply. I communicate often with the SNA and was surprised to realize, based on your comment, that I failed to include them in my blog roll. I’m fixing that oversight now. And thank you for your thoughts on this question of opting out of the NSLP – I always appreciate the input of school food service directors and other school food professionals, and I hope you’ll come back and comment often!
Patrick says
Michelle – I am curious did your district ever drop off the NSMP program as you stated could be a possibility? Thanks!