District Administration - December 2012 - (Page 52)

Three SquareS aT School Scuerman says. They still include requirements to include meat, grains, fruits, vegetables and milk, but the federal child feeding program, or CACFP, guidelines have not been updated to govern levels of fat or sodium, for example. ARAMARK expects the regulations for CACFP, last changed in the 1990s, to be updated this fall, but Scuerman doesn’t expect many surprises and says the company has been attempting to anticipate what those changes will involve. “We’re working internally on recipe development, and externally with manufacturers, to develop and source healthy you really need to look at some of these federal meal programs,” she says. “It’s not just Michelle Obama. We’ve been talking to people who are implementing the program now, and child service nutrition directors and food service manager companies knew this was coming. They’ve been gearing up for it as far as serving more fruits and vegetables. That is the nice thing, that they know ahead of time and can begin the build-up for it.” To date, providers and districts have not been required to run the same nutrient analysis for dinners as they have been for breakfasts and lunches, Moore says. same way, Moore says. “We certainly are cognizant. We’re trying to send a consistent message with what we’re doing during the school day and what we’re doing with the dinner program,” she says. “We see the dinner program as an extension of what we’re trying to do during the academic school day.” Memphis starts from the standpoint that 60 percent of the dinner plate should be fresh fruits and vegetables, 20 percent whole grains, and 20 percent protein, Geraci says. “We don’t have problems adhering to the guidelines. We cook from scratch” in an 110,000-square-foot central kitchen in addition to school kitchens, he says. “I don’t send my chicken out to be turned into nuggets. I cook chicken.” The nutrition services department at Memphis ran a surplus of $7.3 million last year, he adds, which has been reinvested in school kitchens, 98 percent of which have new steamers, ovens, and refrigerators. It’s also in the agriculture business, with a 50-acre central farm and a growing network of urban farms located on school sites and tended to by students, faculty and three full-time staff. “We’re the first vertically integrated public school nutrition program in the country,” Geraci says, adding that he believes they’re the only one, at least anywhere near the same scale. “We live in the richest delta country on the planet. We can grow food year round. Not to utilize that [in all three meals during the day] is not fair to the kids.” San Antonio employs a registered dietician and nutritionists to plan and coordinate menus throughout the day. “You’re looking throughout the day, providing optimal nutrition for those age groups,” Cody says. “There’s calorie ranges, minimum and maximum. You have to look at nutritional analysis. And we don’t want to serve the same thing for supper that you served for lunch.” The district already has in place what’s required under the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act in terms of nutrition, she says. “We had a lot of the things in place: grains, whole wheat, fat-free chocolate milk. We District Administration A well-balanced meal that the cafeterias at 67 schools of the San Antonio ISD are serving students for dinner. products,” Scuerman says. “We’ve had a focus on reducing fat, sodium, and sugar, and adding whole grains wherever we could, for about five years now. We saw the handwriting on the wall with the USDA and have been moving very actively in that direction.” Hoelscher also expects the CACFP guidelines to be updated after the presidential election with input from the Institute of Medicine and other federal guidelines. “The science is showing that 52 December 2012 “That being said, it doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention,” she says. “Our programs are still focused on serving low-fat milk, healthy fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat protein.” Moore adds, “Certainly, they don’t want you serving foods that are high in fat or that sort of thing. But lunch and breakfast because of the high level of participation have been evolving a little more rapidly with regard to policy changes.” But Sodexo has treated dinner the

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - December 2012

District Administration - December 2012
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Special Education
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Fab Lab: Using Technology to Make (Almost) Anything!
Neuroscience in Schools
Three Squares at School
Top 100 DA Readers Choose Innovative Products of the Year
CIO News
Problem Solution
Crisis Response
Online Edge
Going Mobile

District Administration - December 2012