School Lunch Dropouts
Students are given healthy choices on a lunch line at Draper Middle School in Rotterdam, N.Y. in this 2012 file photo. After two years, Baldwinsville Central School District is opting out of the National School Lunch Program for its high school students.
(Hans Pennink | Associated Press)
Baldwinsville, NY -- Strict food guidelines under the National School Lunch Program were created to provide healthier options for students as part of an effort to fight obesity.
But the program doesn't work when students don't eat the food.
A decrease in the number of students buying school lunches and an increase in the amount of food that is being wasted has pushed one Onondaga County school to opt out of the federal program for its high school students.
Starting this coming school year, C.W. Baker High School in the Baldwinsville school district will no longer participate in the National School Lunch Program. The board of eduction voted to notify the State Education Department that it was dropping out.
Baldwinsville joins a handful of schools in New York state and others across the nation who are opting out of the program that was signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1946. In Central New York, Altmar-Parish-Williamstown Central School District and Manlius Pebble Hill School have already opted out. (Exact state and national numbers of the school opting out are not available.)
A hallmark of the program has been free and reduce-priced lunches for students, which Baldwinsville and many districts that opt out continue to provide at their own cost.
But districts are opting out and giving up on federal and state money because they find students are not eating the healthier food. The schools also find the regulations for healthier food too restrictive and hard to follow; those regulations get even tougher starting this month.
Baldwinsville saw school lunches bought drop from 625 a day in 2009-10 to 400 this school year as the district changed its menu to meet the federal requirements, said Baldwinsville Food Service Director Brian Wright. The school has 1,350 students.
That cost the food services department, which is not subsidized by the district, about $20,000 a year.
By opting out of the federal program, the district won't receive federal and state aid for meals, but Wright said those loses will be made up by students actually buying lunches again.
The problems, according to some school lunch officials, can be traced to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 which allowed the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food & Nutrition Services to makeover the National School Lunch Program for first time in more than 15 years.
The goals of the act were to improve the nutritional quality of school meals and help advance the goal of solving the problem of childhood obesity within a generation, which is at the heart of the First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative.
The new nutritional guidelines, which went into effect at the beginning of the 2012-13 school year, set limits on calories and salt.
Schools are now required to offer at least one vegetable or fruit per meal, but there are also restrictions on what type of fruits and vegetables that can be served. Restrictions also limited how much meat and grains can be served daily and weekly. Starting this month all grain products must be whole grain rich. Districts can still serve chocolate milk, but it has to be nonfat.
Wright said the guidelines were too restricting and the students who were buying the food complained they were not getting large enough portions and that the food didn't taste good. Some students threw some or all of their food away.
"It is not uncommon to see a student come out of line and go right to the trash can and throw parts of his lunch away before he even sits down," Wright said.
By opting out of the program food service staff will now have more flexibility in offering healthy menu options that are appealing and will ensure a cost-effective program at the school.
The high school will still offer fruits, vegetables and whole grains but they will also be able to bring back some of the more popular menu items that were eliminated.
"We couldn't serve soup before," he said. "Now we can bring that back."
Wright said, for example, a popular lunch before the new guidelines took effect was a ham and cheese sandwich on a pretzel roll with tomato soup. Under the new guidelines the pretzel roll was replaced with a whole grain roll and the soup was eliminated and replaced with an orange or red vegetable.
"You had one of the student's favorite meals and now they aren't buying it," he said.
The USDA passed more regulations with the Smart Snacks in School in 2013 that put restrictions on the a la carte items that school districts sell. The regulations, which also go into effect Tuesday, will set limits on calories, fats, sugar and sodium on snack items.
Wright said the regulations would have forced the department to remove a large number of its a la carte items and that would cost the department more money in lost revenue.
Wright said due to the fact that the district is losing so much money from the decrease in sales from complete lunches, they need to make up revenues on a la carte items. Losing that revenue too would put the food service department in financial trouble, he said.
In addition to setting nutritional standards, the National School Lunch Program also provides funding to allow financially-eligible students to receive free or reduced school lunches. Wright said there were 204 students receiving free or reduced lunches at the high school last year. By opting out of the federal program, the food services department will now be paying for those lunches.
Wright said the food services will need to make up about $90,000 next year. The district would need to sell about 150 more lunches a day to make up that money, he said
The district will continue to use the USDA guidelines to qualify students for free and reduced meals.
"We are lucky to be able to do this," Wright said. "A district with a larger percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunches might not be able to."
Only the high school will be opting out of the program, Wright said. Baldwinsville's other schools will remain in the federal program.
If the change doesn't work, the high school can return to the federal program next year.
"It's an experiment for sure," Wright said. "I know other schools are thinking about doing this and they are watching what happens here."
Statewide, 1,225 districts participate in the National School Lunch Program, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It is unclear exactly how many school districts have opted out of the program across the state and across the country.
Two Central New York schools have already opted out of the program. Manlius Pebble Hill School opted out of the program in March 2012 due to the size of the meals allowed, according to spokesperson for the school.
Other schools in New York and across the country have already opted out of the program.
The story previously stated that Altmar-Parish-Williamstown Central School District opted out of the Nation School Lunch Program in February 2013. The information provided to syracuse.com was incorrect. APW has never opted out of the program, according to the district.
Sarah Moses covers the northern suburbs of Onondaga County and Oswego
County. Contact Sarah at smoses@syracuse.com or 470-2298. Follow @SarahMoses315