Worldwide inflation

of food prices pushes

proposal for school

price hikes
By Caroline Monday
cmonday@mountainimes.com

Increasing food prices have affected people around the world, and the students of Watauga County are no exception.

The Watauga County Board of Education will soon be making a decision about whether or not to increase school lunch prices in response to the growing cost of food.

At the April school board meeting, director of child nutrition Susan Trivette asked the board to consider raising breakfast prices from 95 cents to $1.05 for pre-k to eighth graders and from $1.20 to $1.30 for ninth through 12th grades.

Lunch prices would go from $1.65 to $1.80 for pre-k through third grades, from $1.75 to $1.90 for fourth through eighth grades, and from $1.90 to $2.05 for high schoolers.

The board will vote on these prices changes at its May board meeting.

Child nutrition programs are self-sustaining entities, paying for their own salaries, staff development, food and equipment with earnings from the sale of school lunches.

With the rise in the price of food, programs in schools across the nation are struggling to stay self-sustaining, while still offering affordable and nutritious meals to students.

“This past year we had a tremendous increase,” Trivette said of food prices.

The program regularly accepts bids on milk, beverages, food and bread. This year, the price of milk went up 8 cents, and the next bread bid could bring an increase of as much as 14 percent.

Trivette and her staff try to perform a balancing act between affordable and healthy food. “Unfortunately, healthy eating has a high cost on it,” she said.

The healthier offerings include switching to whole-wheat pizza and baking French fries instead of frying them. More cafeteria offerings are now being seasoned with herbs and spices, rather than salt. In many cases, “They’re really eating healthier and they don’t realize it,” Trivette said.

She said the child nutrition program here, like many such programs, looks to boost its income by selling extra items, in addition to the standard lunch offerings. These include fruit, a daily dessert, vending machine items and drinks.

In Watauga County, child nutrition works to offer supplemental items with 225 calories or less. The challenge comes in convincing the students to purchase healthy items.

Trivette said it is easier to teach the younger students to develop healthy eating habits, but older students are already set on their choice in foods.

She said one solution would be education about healthy eating, both in school and at home.

To encourage better eating at home, as well as at school, the schools send out a newsletter called the “Nutrition Nugget” with their lunch menus. These newsletters give parents ideas about healthier options at home. “I’m hoping they get read,” Trivette said.

Trivette said she also hopes there will be an increase in number of families who utilize the free and reduced meal programs each school offers. The child nutrition program is able to offer free and reduced price lunches and breakfasts to eligible students and is reimbursed for those meals by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

She said the free/reduced lunch program is underutilized, in part because there is a stigma attached to using the program. Trivette and her staff are hoping changes in the way the cafeteria lines work will help boost enrollment in the program.

School lunch lines are going digital, with a computer-based system that allows parents to pay for their child’s meals online. Students simply give the cashier their lunch number, and the amount is deducted from their balance. The system also keeps track of which students get free/reduced lunches, and there will be no difference in how each student checks out.

Trivette said the switch to computer-based systems in other schools has led to an increase in free/reduced lunch enrollment in other school systems, and she hopes the same will happen here.

Computer systems are expected to be installed in all Watauga schools by the beginning of the 2008-09 school year.