School Board approves new lunch provider

School Board Member Angela Wright (L)
talks with a representative from Sodexo.

After listening to a presentation from Sodexo, sampling their food, and hearing from parents, the School Board voted unanimously last night to sign a one-year contract with the food service, with an option for four additional one-year contracts. After listening to promises of fresher, healthier food with more options for their kids, the parents who spoke at the meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of taking on the new lunch provider. Several admitted that in the past they would not eat the school food they were asking their children to eat.

Although she voted in favor of signing the contract, Board Member Angela Wright expressed reservations about the process of selecting a lunch provider, which she felt should have been part the drafting of the current education plan. She also questioned the additional expense to the school budget.

Schools Treasurer Joy Kitzmiller explained that governmental mandates regarding changes in the lunch program came too late for the process to have been part of the current Education Plan. It would be hard to estimate the impact on the school budget at this time, she said, but it could be an additional expense of between $12,000 and $40,000 in the first year of the contract. She said she hoped that it would break even in the second year as more students participated in the school lunch program.

Your blogger sampled some of the food Sodexo put out (a wrap and a fresh fruit skewer) and gives it his personal seal of approval.

Bon appetite!