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Schools

Lindbergh Schools Dodge a Bullet in New Fed Requirements

Lindbergh is ahead of the curve in healthy school meals, so costly upgrades are past.

By following the old adage “Mother knows best,” Lindbergh schools will avoid a steep financial hit from school meals this coming year, after state and federal mandates ordered more healthy food in school cafeterias.

State and federal guidelines have increasingly demanded schools provide healthier food for students. However, the good news for parents’ pocketbooks and students’ health in the Lindbergh School District, officials say, is that the district is ahead of the curve in regards to nutrition.

“We began working on this four to five years ago,” said Patrick Lanane, the district’s assistant superintendent of finance.

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“We created a parents committee—I called it the ‘Moms Committee’ because it was made up of mothers from the district. We looked at what we were doing. We didn’t look at what the federal or state government was doing. We were really out ahead of that using our moms as our standard.”

The “Moms Committee” set very high standards, according to Gloria Holliday, director of food service for Chartwells—the company managing Lindbergh's meal program.

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“The district just took huge strides and felt the (financial) crunch five years ago when it made changes—as compared to districts just now making the switch,” Holliday said.

The high standards included and changes included:

• increasing the number of whole grains offered, such as solely using whole-grain white bread

• dark green and orange vegetables and fruits served five times a week instead of three

• highlighting local, fresh produce to increase awareness for both parents and students

• all oils and fats used now contain zero trans fat

• eliminating deep frying

• offering light mayo, cream cheese and reduced fat salad dressings along with fat free

• all the milk offered is 1-percent low fat or skim

• reducing sodium by eliminating pickles, jalepenos and black olives

• snacks items limited to 200 calories

• reducing sweet desserts to twice a week in elementary program

• eliminating pop tarts in breakfast program

• limiting syrup and jelly to 1-ounce servings.

To sell students and parents the healthier options, Chartwells highlighted balanced meals on menus and created educational characters that emhasized the importance of nutrition.

The foresight of the Moms Committee has kept Lindbergh School District in front of standards set by the state’s Missouri Eat Smart Guidelines, and the federal mandates of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act and Child Nutrition Act.

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act recently raised the cost of school breakfasts by five cents and lunches by 10 cents, but the cost was mainly due to a requirement that the district collect as much revenue as the federal government subsidizes for meals.

“Missouri set its own standards and guidelines and we immediately met theirs, and actually we were even at or slightly passed what they call the advanced guidelines,” Lanane said. “Now the federal government has reviewed it and has their requirements. We were already there for the most part.”

While the National School Board Association (NSBA) has spoken out against the new federal guidelines in fear it will hurt the finances of already struggling school districts, Lanane said he welcomed the additional subsidies from the federal government.

“We’re happy to see they were going to throw us this carrot, no pun intended,” Lanane said. “It will be easy for us to meet these standards.”

The NSBA believes the reimbursement will not be enough to help those districts behind in meeting federal nutritional requirements, according to an open letter sent to federal legislators from the association’s Associate Director Michael Resnick.

Resnick said schools that need to put healthier food on the menu will struggle with the rising costs of food.

NSBA estimates schools with 5,000 students qualifying for free or reduced-priced lunches will face an additional $72,000 in costs per school year to meet the requirements of the newly mandated Child Nutrition Act.

But those fears will not bear fruit in the Lindbergh School District, Lanane said. He pointed to "fairly minimal" increases in meal costs , such as the 5 cent and 10 cent increase this year.

Lindbergh district's meal program is managed by Chartwells—a company that ensures the program is self-sustaining, and bears no costs to taxpayers, school officials say.

“We think it’s important it stands on its own,” Lanane said. “Labor, food and other costs should be covered by two sources; revenue from parents (for kids) and any reimbursements from the federal government. It’s a pretty conservative approach but it makes sense to us. We don’t think taxpayers without kids in school should be paying for students’ lunches directly. We’ve always had that philosophy.”

Lanane said the overarching goal of the federal guidelines is an effort to address a national childhood obesity problem.

“The bigger picture on this is it started out (as) local concern on nutrition, then a state concern, now you have a federal concern,” Lanane said. “One of the reasons for that is for the many, many kids who participate in the lunch program it really is their major source of nutrition in the school year. Especially in areas with high poverty, it may constitute 90 percent of their nutrition.”

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