Colorado recently passed the Meals for All bill. However, who are the workers who are preparing meals? How do they manage to feed students from every grade? This story goes into depth about the meal plans that the district has for each meal and what the staff members do each day.
The cafeteria staff and leaders play a crucial role in the lives of students ensuring that each one is fueled and prepared to go through whatever the school day brings.
Resa Sturdivant works as an assistant manager in the cafeteria and has worked at the school for one year. Sturdivant starts her day at 6:30 am and starts prepping meals, “We do our plan in the day ahead. We go by menus…so like on Monday we plan for next date, Tuesday,” said Sturdivant.
A new program ships ingredients needed days in advance allowing the workers and chefs to prep meals for the amount of students coming for breakfast and lunch.
Kim Kilgore is the Director of Food and Nutrition Services for the district. She oversees the program as a whole, mostly working with staff members and managers. “I am very grateful to have an awesome team below me that develops the menus and hires staff,” said Kilgore.
The staff follows the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) Child Nutrition Program that has set nutrition requirements for student meals, “We have to limit the amount of fat for instance, we have to limit the amount of sodium and all of the meals for that week. We also have to make sure that it provides all of the vitamins and minerals that are required…so that makes our menu planning very clump complex.” Kilgore explained.
The lunch meal pattern for school lunches can be found on the Code of Federal Regulations Website: https://www.ecfr.gov/.
Healthy School Meals for All, was the bill passed last fall allowing students who attend public schools in Colorado to get free lunch during the school year.
Aajalani Patacsil is a student at CT who occasionally eats school lunch. She often forgets her home lunch and eats school lunch instead in order to not be hungry while in class, “I think [the bill is] very good. I eat school lunch every now and then and some of the stuff is pretty good,” said Patacsil.
There has been an issue in hiring enough staff to support this bill, “We’re just not built to feed all the students in one or two lunch periods. Our warehouse where everything comes in and then the managers order from is not big enough for all the things that we need to bring in. We unfortunately haven’t been able to hire all the staff that we need,” said Kilgore.
Kilgore and her team decided to address these problems by improving equipment and better recognizing and appreciating the staff, “We’ve made some changes to our register system so that students can more quickly get through the line as you know, we’ve got scanners available to quickly get students wrung up. We’ve also done a lot of staff recognition and appreciation just to let them know how much we appreciate what they do,” said Kilgore.
Sturdivant explains that the students she has served are very respectful and she enjoys serving students meals every day, “I have enjoyed the year I have been here and I will continue to be here,” said Sturdivant.
The Cafeteria Staff are an essential part of the school and everyday life for many students. From our personal cafeteria staff here at CT to the District Directors, students will always be grateful to these unsung heroes who offer students the energy they need to go to school.
