South Dakota’s secretary of education told a House Education subcommittee that schools are swamped by too much paperwork from the federal school food program. A school board president from Indiana said some students smuggle in salt and pepper to season the bland meals served at school, and the nutrition chief for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction said “six cents is not sufficient” additional compensation for complying with school lunch reforms.
While the three school leaders pointed to shortcomings in the 2010 school lunch law, nutrition director Donna Martin of Georgia’s Burke County Public Schools said her schools were a success story in meeting the requirements to serve more whole grains and fresh fruit and vegetables and less salt, sugar and fat. The administration says 95 percent of schools comply with the reforms.
Subcommittee chairman Todd Rokita, an Indiana Republican, said a visit to a middle school in his district showed “that despite the increased federal involvement in the school meals programs, many students are still going to class hungry …. It’s time to provide those responsible for implementing child nutrition programs with the flexibility they need to ensure taxpayer dollars are well spent and students are well served.” Rep. Glenn Grothman, a Wisconsin Republican, suggested schools would do a better job if the government wrote a check and left it to them to serve nutritious meals. “It’s not rocket science,” said Grothman.
The federal child-nutrition programs, which cost about $21 billion a year, are scheduled for an update this year. School lunch is the largest and best known of the programs. Most than 30 million school children eat hot meals daily through the program, which provides meals for free or at a reduced price for low-income children.
“We are simply unable to dig out of the paperwork,” said South Dakota Education Secretary Melody Schopp. She said a dozen small, rural districts have dropped out of the school lunch program. “My greater concern is others will follow.” John Payne of the Blackford School Board in Hartford City, Indiana, said “students are slipping through a one-size-fits-all net,” with some not getting enough food and others rejecting what is available. “In my district, whole-grain items, most of the broccoli, end up in the trash.”
Martin said participation in the school meal program remained steady as the district gradually introduced healthier versions of popular foods – baked chicken instead of fried, for instance. “Yes, we have whole-grain biscuits and, yes, our kids eat them,” said Martin. Lynn Harvey, nutrition chief for North Carolina, said schools needed higher reimbursement rates, a time-out on requirements to serve more whole-grain items and use less salt, and a rollback of the requirement for students to take a serving of fruit or vegetables with a meal. The School Nutrition Association has a similar list of recommendations.