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Grace and Gratitude: 10 Truths about School Meals, Labor Day, 2021

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Some of my best friends are school nutrition professionals. On any ordinary Labor Day, I would salute their hard work, post a few photos of colorful school meals, and move on. But this is no ordinary Labor Day, especially since it is the second observance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, September 6 is also the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a time of introspection and reflection. September is Hunger Awareness/Action Month as well.

For all these reasons, I am sharing some important news about school meals and the dedicated professionals who plan, prepare and serve them to 30 million plus children every school day. There is good news: All students K-12 can enjoy school meals at no cost during SY 2021-22, along with challenging news: Feeding all students K-12 during SY 2021-22 is no easy task. Unfortunately, there is also sad news: School nutrition heroes are being treated with disrespect – by school administrators, by educators, by families, and, in some worst-case scenarios, by their colleagues in the nutrition community.

In my opinion, the only things that we should be saying to school nutrition professionals this September are thank you and what can I do to help? Like your mom told you, if you cannot say kind things, please don’t say anything at all. Here’s why:

1. School lunch ladies and food dudes are true heroes. When COVID shut down the US in March 2020, school nutrition programs kept serving meals for hungry families – curbside drive-thrus when virtually every restaurant was closed, and many grocery stores had empty shelves.

2. School nutrition professionals are exhausted. They have served billions of emergency meals on the frontlines with little time to rest and recuperate. They have been creative with meal kits, emergency food boxes and dining in the classroom – but now they are tired, very tired.

3. Healthy school meals for all increases participation. School nutrition professionals know the face of childhood hunger. They saw it before the pandemic, and they watched food insecurity grow during COVID. They are eager to feed as many students as possible and to see meal counts go up.

4. School meal programs are struggling with staffing. Help-wanted signs are everywhere in foodservice. School food programs are short-staffed at the same time they have more students in line for meals. Scratch cooking with fresh and local ingredients also requires more labor hours.

5. Schools have serious problems getting food they order. If you’ve heard the term supply chain disruptions, you know that food products and equipment are also hard to come by. School nutrition programs are having trouble getting many student favorites in the increased amounts they need.

6. School dining spaces have strict safety guidelines. Keeping kids safe during COVID takes extra work and vigilance. Social distancing while eating and keep dining spaces clean requires extra staff time that is already in short supply. Students may also need extra TLC as they adjust to being back in school.

7. School nutrition leaders go the extra mile every day. They go to work on a holiday to take a delivery that cannot wait until Tuesday. They go in on a weekend to check a freezer alarm. They leave their office computers to go into schools to wash dishes, cut up veggies, serve meals and whatever else is necessary.

8. Contingency planning for B-C-D-E is the new normal. Even the best run programs need much more that a plan B. Directors are continually planning for the “unexpected” – school closures, staff rosters with necessary CVOID quarantining, postponed deliveries and _______________.

9. Rather than complaining, take time to help or support. Give school nutrition professionals grace for doing the best they can, with what they have, in very difficult situations. If you are in a school, take a few minutes to handout meals at a breakfast cart or to wipe down tables between classes in the cafeteria.

10. A simple “thanks” can do wonders. It doesn’t have to be complicated or elaborate. Handmade cards from students are always in style. These thank you cards from USDA Team Nutrition are easy to download and send or print out: https://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/stronger-school-meals-educational-materials

School Food on the Frontlines: It’s been a COVID year of grace for Jessica Shelly and CPS

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Jessica Shelly, MBA, SNS, REHS, is coming up on her 11th anniversary as Director, Student Dining Services for Cincinnati Public Schools, which now has 36,000 students (down from 40,000, 83.5 percent free-reduced pre-pandemic). The department provided 3.8 million meals from March 2020 through March 2021 – and is now getting ready to support in-school learning five days per week as students return from spring break.

What was the biggest challenge that you had to overcome in the past year?

Jessica Shelly and Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) have a well-deserved reputation as nutrition super stars in the school world: salad bars in every school packed with as much local produce as possible, going above and beyond to lower sugar and sodium in purchased products, early adoption of Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s School Beverage and Competitive Food Guidelines – list goes on and on. This was – and is – a department called ‘award-winning’ by local, regional and national agencies.

Jessica Shelly, always focused on feeding children

When COVID closed schools and disrupted food distribution channels, Jessica was again a super star. CPS Student Dining Services actually had a pandemic plan; Jessica ‘dusted’ off the folder, made updates and went right to work in her own department (and helping other districts across the country). However it quickly because clear that CPS was not going to be able to maintain all the standards that they were so proud of – starting with salad bars with multiple options of local produce! They needed to give themselves (and others) grace – to press the pause button on amazing changes and to do what they needed to do to keep food, students, and staff safe. They focused on the ‘prize’ that mattered most: Feeding all the students they possibly could with the best options available. They knew they might not be serving all the meals they did pre-COVID and that this food would mean the world to the families they could serve.

When students could not get to food, CPS took the food to them

What achievement are you the proudest of in the past year?

By working with the CPS incident team, Cincinnati City Hall, and local companies with the demographic data they needed, Student Dining Services was able to insure that no CPS child was more than 1 mile from a food distribution point. Better still, many of these one-stop points also distributed other food and supplies for families in need – because partnerships and trusting relationships were developed as they learned to move quickly. They were also able to keep all their food service staff gainfully employed and, with more flexible scheduling, to offer more professional development leading to a better trained workforce.

Student Dining Services has maintained staff and added professional development

What innovation have you made that you will continue using in the future?

Usually in Jessica’s district, like many others, it has been hard to initiate change and break out of existing molds. During the pandemic, their willingness to ‘lean into’ new ways of doing business, sometimes within hours, has made them more effective and efficient than ever before. Jessica believes that they can tackle anything as a team, that the WHAT IFS can now become realities quickly. What if we could offer winter/spring break meals, what if we could partner with the food bank, what if we support more local Ohio Proud farmers? Well now we can because our essential workers are trained, ready and willing to support student learning and success throughout CPS!