A few nutritious treats were available at the Moorestown Township Public School’s Board of Education meeting last week for board members and the public to sample, representing some of the available items students get to choose from during lunch time at school.
The district’s food service managers, Nutri-Serve Food Management, came to the meeting to give a presentation on updates with the district’s food services as well as to give an overview of what it does as a company.
Nutri-Serve Food Management manages the school food service programs for 88 public and private school districts in Central and Southern New Jersey as well as Pennsylvania. Its team of professionals utilizes its expertise in food service, technology, and marketing to design and operate feeding programs that are customized to meet each district’s needs.
A balanced lunch includes milk, grains, protein, fruits and vegetables. According to Dana Gollotto, food services director, there have been some changes over the past few years as the government regulated. Portion sizes of grains and proteins have decreased, fruit and vegetable portions have increased and are a must for school lunches, milk is to be non-fat flavored, unflavored or 1 percent fat unflavored, and snacks must fall into very tight nutritional standards, known as smart snacking.
“Our main goal is to increase their fruits and vegetables,” Gollotto said.
Gollotto said they try to encourage students by educating them at a young age about the importance of fruits and vegetables, adding signage to cafeterias for reminders and providing a variety of options available to students each day of the school week. At the elementary schools and middle school, there isn’t much of a problem with this, but at the high school it is harder to encourage students to take their fruits and vegetables, according to Gollotto.
Gollotto said if students don’t take the required amount of food, the school cannot ring it up as a full meal and therefore won’t get reimbursement. Students are encouraged to take a full meal, not only for nutritional purposes, but because it is cheaper to parents as well as to the school. If a student doesn’t get a full meal, they are charged “a la carte” which is more expensive, so parents are encouraged to ask their students to get a full meal.
“We do encourage them to take their fruits and vegetables and all of the components of that,” Gollotto said.
Nutri-Serve Food Management also added a pilot “make your own” concept at William Allen Middle School, which includes a salad bar, yogurt parfait bar, burrito bar, Asian noodle bar, and brunch bar a different day of the week. It was very successful, hitting about 84 servings a day according to Gollotto. In the future, they are thinking of offering it at Upper Elementary School and eventually moving to other schools.
“We were trying to figure out a way to have students feel enticed to make healthy choices… the kids were overwhelmed with the choices, happy that they were there and very excited,” Gollotto said.
Another change in the lunches at MTPS was in the school lunch pricing. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 requires that school districts compare the average price being charged for full priced lunches to the federal reimbursements for free and paid lunches. This comparison must be made on an annual basis.
When the average price was calculated this year, it was determined that the district would be required to increase lunch prices. The BOE approved an increase in lunch prices at the Aug. 11 BOE meeting, increasing lunches anywhere from $0.05 to $0.10. Breakfast program prices for students, adults and kindergarten milk/juice remained the same.
In other news:
• An addendum for School Administrator/Board Secretary Lynn E. Shugars as acting superintendent was unanimously approved at the meeting. The addendum states that Shugars will continue to fulfill the responsibilities as superintendent of MTPS without additional compensation until Dec. 1. Shugars was appointed as acting superintendent effective Sept. 1.
• At the meeting it was announced Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers scores will be released in steps. The first step was on the state scores, which were released last Friday. According to Carole Butler, director of curriculum and instruction, scores were lower than anticipated in New Jersey. However, she wanted to caution that is typical because it is a first-year test. Mid-November the school district will get its scores as a whole and individual student scores will be released late November/early December. In that process, MTPS will get that information to the public after reviewing it by late December or January. Butler said there will be a calendar of updates on the MTPS website, www.mtps.com, and there will be parent nights to explain what all of the scores mean as well as to the board.
• The first meeting for strategic planning for the future of MTSP will be on Nov. 2. The committee will be giving updates to the board throughout the process. The board approved the broad-based strategic plans at its meeting in September. The strategic plans stated the vision was to “enhance our academic, emotional and social foundations while creating a collaborative learning environment which fosters global awareness through personal opportunities and individual growth.”
There were three broad-based goals to establish a culture of innovation to facilitate authentic growth and development of engaged, dynamic and productive learners; provide resources, targeted instruction and interventions tailored to learners’ foundational needs at all grade levels; and design opportunities that promote self-awareness, confidence, personal responsibility and social mindfulness to provide the foundation for competent local and global citizenship.
• Julie Colby, mathematics supervisor, gave an overview and update on the mathematics curriculum at MTPS to the board. Gavin Quinn, science supervisor, will present an outline of the science curriculum from kindergarten through the senior year at the Nov. 17 meeting.
• The next BOE meeting will be on Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the William Allen Middle School Media Center.
