March is Child Nutrition Month, but for Rebecca Kammerdeiner, every day is child nutrition day. Kammerdeiner, director of food service for both the Clarion and Brookville school districts, has been with the Clarion district for 25 years and with both school districts for 16 years.
Her job is to make certain students receive two-thirds of their daily nutritional requirement while trying to keep cost to a minimum. Meeting both of those requirements, though, can be a challenge.
For example, one day last week in the Clarion district, students were served a lunch of spaghetti with whole grain white pasta that is less expensive than white pasta.
“We also offer three cold choices, including the standard PB and J (peanut butter and jelly).”
That’s at the elementary school.
“At the high school, we offer more choices. We have some kids who, no matter what you put on the menu, will take the same thing every day,” she said.
There’s not just lunch
The schools also serve breakfast.
“I have served breakfast for the past 25 years, but we started a grab-and-go breakfast at Clarion this year,” Kammerdeiner said. “I used mini-grants from the state.
“We set up breakfast in the hallway for our fourth-through-sixth-graders. They can grab their breakfast and go to their classrooms. We feed the little guys in the cafeteria.”
Kammerdeiner said she tries to limit what the kids can take back to the classroom.
“Obviously, you can’t give them pancakes and syrup. It doesn’t work,” she said.
Ensuring children receive two meals a day is essential, she said.
“They will get one-third of their daily allowance at breakfast and one-third at lunch,” Kammerdeiner said.
“The nutrition is important because it keeps the kids focused. When you have a good breakfast program, there are fewer visits to the nurse’s office complaining of a bellyache when, in fact, they are hungry. It keeps them fueled.”
Kammerdeiner said if it weren’t for the school breakfast program, some kids would have no breakfast.
“Honestly, I think a lot of kids show up for school for the breakfast and lunch,” she said.
Kammerdeiner said school districts operate a backpack program.
“I think we are meeting the needs of the kids when they head home for the day,” she said.
Kammerdeiner pushed for lunches to be served on half-days, especially if the partial days fall on a Friday.
“For some of these kids, we are the only game in town,” she said.
Changing times
The Obama-era regulations, she said, are still in place.
“What changed in 2010 was they took out the 1 percent milk and they went to 100 percent whole grain. The portion sizes did not change. They can always buy additional servings,” Kammerdeiner said.
“We have different vegetable requirements during the week, like leafy-green requirements; red-orange requirements, and we have to ensure a student takes either a fruit or a vegetable with their lunch.”
The pendulum, she said, is starting to swing a little bit on the whole-grain offering.
“In the past couple of years, we have been able to do waivers to offer non-grain products for some items that were not accepted by the students,” Kammerdeiner said.
She said pizza is a perfect example.
“It was really difficult to find a good, whole-grain pizza crust,” she said.
Allocations and regulations
Every year, Kammerdeiner said, she receives an allocation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is based on the previous year’s data. This year, it equated to about $29,000 in commodities, and at Brookville it was $58,000.
She was able to divert potatoes to french fries and block cheese to shredded mozzarella cheese.
“It is a big puzzle,” she said.
But, she said, it is a misconception that name-brand items aren’t used.
“There are so many moving parts. It is a huge process. Both the USDA and state review our paperwork because there state and federal dollars involved,” she said.
Most people, she said, don’t realize how in-depth the school’s nutrition program is, and that it is the most-regulated component of public education.
“I have many bosses. I have the superintendent, the school board, local officials, state officials, federal guidelines and the U.S. Department of Education guidelines,” Kammerdeiner said.
“It is a balancing act trying to provide a nutritious meal to the kids while balancing all of the regulations and requirements.”
She is going through an administrative review at the Brookville School District.
“That requires not only a financial review, but also a nutritional analysis of every food item on the menu – from ketchup to spaghetti and meat sauce,” Kammerdeiner said.
“We serve some of the most vulnerable students in the pre-K and K-through-12 classes with their immune systems. We have so many more kids with life-threatening food allergies. We have to watch for cross-contamination.”
Clarion, she said, has ServSafe certification, which is administered by the National Restaurant Association.
“It is a requirement for directors to be certified, but I take it a step further. We have six of our staff that is certified in the Clarion district alone,” she said.
In addition, there are “changing” dynamics.
“When I started here, the free and reduced lunches were at 13 percent, she said. Now, in Clarion, they are 49 percent at the elementary school and 38 percent at the high school. At Brookville, they are at about 48 percent district wide.”
Despite the challenges of her job, Kammerdeiner said it is gratifying.
“There is never a dull moment,” she said.