Some districts find requirements too burdensome
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
Opting out of federal school breakfast and lunch requirements isn’t an option for the Delavan-Darien School District where nearly 70 percent of students are eligible for free- or reduced-price meals.
“We wouldn’t be in the position to go the route where we would drop out of the program,” said Tina Hudy, Delavan-Darien School District child nutrition director.
Hudy said the district’s high percentage of students who receive free and reduced-price lunches essentially dictates the district’s participation. If it opted out, the district wouldn’t receive federal reimbursement for those meals.
In the 2013-14 school year, the district spent $1.3 million on its breakfast and lunch programs and was reimbursed $989,151 from the federal government – about 75 percent of its costs.
“I can’t really see departing from some of the basics anyway,” Hudy said.
She said while the district offers more fruits and vegetables than it did three or four years ago under new federal school meal requirements, it has always been a proponent of offering healthy choices and exposing to kids to more home-style food options.
“We’ve always offered a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits,” Hudy said.
But other districts have found the requirements, implemented incrementally since 2012, too burdensome.
“There are some schools in Wisconsin that have opted out,” said Cynthia Loechler, public health nutritionist for the state Department of Public Instruction.
Loechler said her department has no data on the number of districts that have opted out.
Changes begin
The requirements, which center primarily on the inclusion of whole grains and fruits and vegetables in school meals, began to develop in the early 1990s, Loechler said. Studies conducted at that time showed school meals were high in calories, fat and sodium and might be contributing to the growing phenomenon of childhood obesity, she said.
The Institute of Medicine came up with recommendations for new meal patterns at the same time the U.S. Department of Agriculture was reauthorizing its school lunch program, Loechler said.
“The IOM’s recommendations were pretty timely,” she said.
The meal-pattern recommendations and the reauthorization of the federal meal program resulted in the Healthy Hunger-free Kids Act of 2010, Loechler said.
The emphasis on the law was to begin curbing childhood obesity, she said.
One of the changes was to further break down the age groups for which meal recommendations are provided. The program previously provided guidelines for kindergarten through third-graders and fourth- through 12th-graders.
“The nutritional needs of a fourth-grader are different than a 12th-grader,” Loechler said.
The law now provides dietary specifications in three age groups – kindergarten through fifth-graders, sixth- through eighth-graders and ninth- through 12th-graders.
The act spells out dietary specifications for each of those age groups that include calorie ranges and amounts of nutrient-dense foods – whole grains and fruits and vegetables, Loechler said.
The requirements of the Healthy Hunger-free Kids Act began to be implemented in July 2012 with new lunch meal patterns, Loechler said. New breakfast requirements were implemented in 2013-14; and a new breakfast fruit requirement and snack rules began in 2014-15, she said.
“It’s been a progressive thing,” said Hudy.
The elements implemented in 2012 require students to take a fruit or vegetable serving at lunch, she said. Students must take three out of the five meal components – protein, fruit, vegetable, grain and milk, Hudy said. With the new requirements, one of the three must be a fruit or vegetable.
Prior to the new rules, meat, a bun and milk would have met the requirements.
“Before they could get away with a sandwich,” Hudy said. Now they must take a fruit or vegetable.
The part implemented this school year requires that students have a cup of fruit or juice, or a half cup of each, at breakfast, she said.
The “smart snack” program also began this year. Under that program, items that schools offer ala carte or in vending machines must meet certain requirement as far as calories, serving size and percentage of whole grain, Hudy said. A year ago, she said, 51 percent of products had to be whole-grain rich. Now, all of them have to be.
An unfortunate result of the “smart snack” rules is that pints of orange juice – too large a serving under the new rules – are no longer allowed in vending machines, but diet soda is, Hudy said.
“To me it’s the wrong thing,” she said.
Reimbursement
With the implementation of the Healthy Hunger-free Kids Act, school districts are given incentive to follow the meal patterns with additional reimbursement of their costs from the federal government.
Loechler said the reimbursement rates increase regularly. In the 2014-15 school year, districts receive 28 cents from the federal government for each full-priced lunch they serve, $2.58 for each reduced-price lunch and $2.98 for each free lunch.
Breakfast reimbursement rates are $1.62 for free meals, $1.32 for reduced-price and 28 cents for full-price.
School districts in which more than 60 percent of students receive free- or reduced-price lunches get an additional 2 cents back per meal.
As additional incentive, districts that demonstrate to the state Department of Public Instruction that they are following the requirements receive an additional 6 cents per lunch. Loechler said the districts complete a workbook to become certified to receive the added reimbursement.
She said about 85 percent of schools in the state are receiving the additional 6 cents per lunch. The state has begun a new administrative review process whereby the districts that are not receiving the additional reimbursement will be the first to be reviewed and certified through the review process.
Districts’ lunch programs are reviewed every three years in a scheduled one- to two-day visit, Loechler said. Larger districts take about a week to review.
Loechler said schools are reporting that providing meals that meet the new requirements is costlier. But, she said, gauging the percentage of schools’ meal costs that is reimbursed is difficult because the cost of the meals is not standard.
She said purchasing prepared items saves districts labor costs, but the food is costlier. Buying fresh foods is less expensive but costs more for labor to prepare them.
The Delavan-Darien School District cooks all of its food at the high school. Heat-and-serve items – things that are frozen and ready to use – are prepared in each building, Hudy said. The district also provides meals for Delavan Christian School, Our Redeemer Lutheran School and St. Andrew’s Catholic School.
Waste
Hudy said students are still taking hot lunch at Delavan-Darien schools but might not be eating all of the foods they’re required to take.
“When kids are forced to take a certain item, if they don’t want it, there would be more waste,” she said.
But, she said, she believes giving kids to healthy, home-style options, which some kids don’t get at home, will result in students eating more foods that are good for them.
“I see that some kids immediately throw it somewhere,” she said. “I think there’s more kids probably now that are eating the stuff than they used to be just from being exposed to it constantly.”
Hudy said the new items in the vending machines are not as popular as the foods previously served ala carte.
