School Lunches Pricier Due To High School Losses, Health Care Increases

By John Voket

Public school lunch price increases were approved by the Board of Education this week, despite the fact that in every location but the high school, institutional programs are apparently generating revenue for the company contracted to provide meal services.

During Tuesday’s school board meeting, representatives from Chartwells School Dining Services also learned the district would exercise its option to utilize the company’s services for another year.

Representatives from the company told the school board they were proposing a 25-cent, across-the-board increase on meals for adults, as well as the district’s elementary, middle, and high-school clients.

Chartwells representative John Prunier said that the school lunch increase, the first in four years in Newtown, is primarily being driven by an approximate $111,000 loss in revenue below projections at the high school level. He added that additional factors driving the price increase were three-fold.

Mr Prunier said that healthier choices of items in each meal, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, simply cost more to obtain and process.

“To put cucumber and tomato on the plate costs more than the french fries and Tater-Tots,” he said.

He added that increasing fuel costs, which contributed to higher delivery expenses, factored into the mix, as well.

Chartwells School Dining Services was also mandated this year, to offer health insurance coverage to staff members who worked 30 hours each week or more. In previous years, these 30-hour employees were apparently classified as part-time and were not eligible for health care benefits under the law.

“We had a number of employees who became eligible and took advantage of the opportunity to receive health care benefits,” Mr Prunier said. “That added to our overall insurance costs, and we had to give it to them.”

In discussing a situation he deemed “uncharacteristic” in Newtown, Mr Prunier pointed to the fact that except for the high school, all other school meal programs are profitable. For the most part, that trend is reversed in other school districts where an average $3 per day, per student spending ratio is common at the high school level.

He attributed this reverse trend, in part, to the availability of an Internet-based service that allows parents to prepurchase credits for their children’s meals, as well as the cooperation between Chartwells and district staff in formulating “classic” meal choices that still provide a healthy choice of entrees and side dishes that are popular with the younger students.

Mr Prunier also referenced the condition of the high school cafeteria and the school’s overcrowding, which creates long lunch lines that in many cases prevent students from being able to access and eat their meals before their lunch periods have passed.

During his discussion, the Chartwells representative suggested that the frustrating lunch-hour traffic jam at the high school is likely contributing to revenue losses due to alleged theft of food by students. He said during lunch hours on Tuesdays through Fridays, there may be as many as 500–600 students converging on the cafeteria at one time.

“When there are 150 to 200 kids jammed into the food court area [of the cafeteria] there’s a temptation there,” Mr Prunier said. “There’s a dissatisfaction there on the part of students who want to participate.”

He told the school board that Chartwells is working on an alternative cash and carry café concept that would turn an unused dishwashing area into a early morning to late afternoon location where students could run in and purchase everything from salads to sandwiches, snacks and even smoothies and eat them elsewhere on the premises, or even take food to go to off-site activities.

After some additional discussion, the school board approved increases effective in the next school year at $2.15 at the elementary level, $2.30 at the middle school, and $2.35 at the high school level. Adult meals would be $3, and milk prices for an eight-ounce carton at the middle/high and elementary levels would be 50 and 40 cents respectively.

The Board of Education then exercised an option to continue its contract with Chartwells for another full school year. According to a spokesperson at the district offices, the company will enter the second year of a contract that incorporates up to three more renewal periods.