On Outsourcing School Lunches
Posted on 27 April 2007 under Food In The News, School Lunches
How ridiculous is it to outsource school lunches? Plenty ridiculous if you ask me. And even if you don’t.
Yesterday’s Ann Arbor News had a great picture of an Ann Arbor Schools food service worker cutting pizzas. But the news itself was sobering. Part of Superintendent Todd Roberts’ budget plan calls for the outsourcing of the school lunch program to Chartwells, including the layoff (ok, firings) of 73 current foodservice workers.
The article states, “Privatizing food service operations would bring $400,000 in new revenue into the district, according to Roberts’ proposal.”
This makes no sense to me whatsoever. The kids will still need to be fed in such a way that fulfills federal guidelines. There has to adequate staff to accomplish both this and the accompanying hygiene requirements from the state. Add on the new overhead of the private company, and …
It’s simple math. I see no savings whatsoever, definitely not $400,000 less per year. I see it costing more.
Take a look at this article from the National Education Association. This excerpt should make you angry:
“A report obtained by The Ann Arbor News on Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request indicates…students may have had reason for concern. Earlier this month, a county inspection of food service at Cheney, which is provided by Chartwells, an outside vender, found food kept at improper temperatures and food packages that lacked expiration dates … “The problems were corrected by the time the county made a follow-up visit 10 days later. Following an Oct. 8 visit to Cheney, an inspector with the Washtenaw County Department of Environmental Health wrote: ‘A large quantity of turkey and ham sandwiches were being served without cold holding capabilities. Sandwiches were at 68 to 90 degrees, Fahrenheit. Some sandwiches were under a heat light. Also, cold tuna and potato salad served without cold holding capabilities (was found). These items can cause death by listeria contamination and must be held at less than 41 degrees Fahrenheit to be safe.’… “In addition, the report noted: ‘Lunch meats, potato salads (and) salad meats not supplied with seven-day maximum use-by dates.’ … “In conclusion, the inspector wrote: ‘I am very concerned about food safety…We need to have more accountability of food safety procedures in the elementary schools.’…
Seems to me there needs to be more common sense, and definitely more research on this decision. And I hope to never see anything like this in my own kids’ schools.
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27 April 2007 @ 10:16 am Posted by Griff Crammond
Dave:
I agree. The situation we all seem to find ourselves in for all purchase decisions is ‘the race to the bottom.’ We end up applying the same low-cost decisions to everything we do, including raising funds through taxes and the expenditure of taxes.
An old mentor of mine coached that we have three choices to select from; however we can only choose two of three. The choice then becomes, which are you most willing to sacrifice in order to obtain the two most desireable? The choices are:
1. Highest quality
2. Lowest cost
3. Most timely
What we will never achive as consumers is the position of: free, perfect and now. Outsourcing promises the illusion of getting close to that, but the costs are significant if we use your discussion as a starting point. Since food service workers are really part of the public health service, how can this district consider using a firm that is in violation of proven safe-serve methods?
Your mileage may vary,
Peace,
Griff
27 April 2007 @ 10:44 am Posted by Mary
Like our kids don’t already have enough to challege their ability to learn? Now we can add food posioning to the list!I do not believe the school system should give up control over feeding their students, or bussing their students. Something bad will happen and then what, “I am not responsible it was subcontracted?”
27 April 2007 @ 11:53 am Posted by LunaPierCook
Going through the non-corporate hits from Googling “chartwells” doesn’t leave any kind of a good impression. From sanitation to labor issues, problems appear to be the norm. There are unsubstantiated complaints in some areas that seem to be a normal schoolkids’ “School food is bad!”, but there are enough reports from mainstream media to make me feel queazy.
As I pointed out to Mary a week or so ago, I like seeing school buses that have the proud words “Board Owned” emblazoned on the side. Too bad there aren’t more things school boards can be proud of.
28 April 2007 @ 2:08 am Posted by vanessa
who wants to eat cafeteria food anyway? doesn’t anyone send their kids to school with brown bags or lunchboxes anymore?
28 April 2007 @ 4:25 am Posted by LunaPierCook
We do send John with a brown bag lunch most days, but on days we’ve forgotten to put it together or we’re just too tired, it’s nice to throw a few bucks on the table and know he’s taken care of.
Because the National School Lunch Program is federally mandated, something has to be available for the kids which meets the nutritional guidelines. It would certainly save schools considerable funds to drop the school lunch program altogether and require parents to send a lunch with each kid. But part of the overall issue with it is that there are too many families who have trouble making ends meet, either honestly (which I’ve seen in a lot of areas), or by choice in taking advantage of all of us by staying on welfare, food stamps, etc. when they could do better if they actually tried. The truly low-income families of this country are the real reason the school lunch program is a necessity.
28 April 2007 @ 8:33 pm Posted by Mike Ingels
A few years ago, the Adrian Public Schools lunch staff was in danger of being privatized. The workers offered a counterproposal. They took the federal commodities program food list and built an entire menu from it.
Basically, the government takes certain overabundant farm products off the market - milk, corn, etc. - to help support farm prices. The surplus that the government takes in gets distributed within several nutrition programs. Among these is a school-based program.
This meant that the Adrian staff was able to create meals that met nutritional guidelines, but that cost the district much less than market-priced or private sector items.
It apparently took some creativity on the part of the staff. Some of the commodities are, apparently, unusual. But it seems to have saved the district money.
11 May 2007 @ 9:07 am Posted by JJ
Obviously the lunch program is broken and needs fixing!? Outsourcing makes perfect sense here, management companies can purchase food and beverages at lower prices for starters saving us all $$. A highly qualified food service director will be hired and all State regs will be followed. Taking one article from somewhere to show bad light on Chartwells is of course unfair. Do you have any links to positive stories? Do you know what the program defecit is each year? What makes you think the program can’t improve and bring in more studetns to eat? As a tax payer I do not want to subsidize the lunch program so if outsourcing makes the difference than I am for it.