By Gerri Miller
Staff Writer
PHOTO: Since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of schools, many area nutrition workers and volunteers had to come up with new and creative ideas to ensure students still had access to meals. That creativity may continue into the next school year, to include not using school cafeterias to feed large numbers of students. New guidelines for the upcoming school year are expected later this month. (Photo by Gerri Miller)
Starting up the new school year has brought a host of questions not only how on how children will be taught, but also on how they will be fed.
In a long-awaited document released in May on reopening schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made recommendations that could alter nearly every part of the school day, from bus rides to recess. If children are back on campus and not learning virtually, feeding them in their classrooms was one of the recommendations.
The guidance comes as states and districts begin planning for the 2020-21 school year, most of them considering multiple scenarios—remote learning, in-person instruction, or a hybrid approach—that could be adapted depending on how well their regions keep the virus contained over the summer.
Cacyce Davis, director of the Elmore County Child Nutrition Program, said one of the possibilities her team is planning for is feeding all students both breakfast and lunch in the classroom.
Nine Elmore County schools are already serving breakfast in the classrooms. In 2017, Wetumpka Elementary School went from serving 250 students to 800 each day. In 2018-19, four elementary schools started serving breakfast and in 2019-20, the county’s middle schools came on board.
“It helps with attendance and decrease tardiness when kids are nourished,” Davis said. “It’s a win-win for the kids, schools and parents.
Davis said it is important that the change does not affect the quality of what children eat at school. “We want to make sure we increase the quality of meals and customer service. We want kids to enjoy what they are eating at school and will make sure that it is nutritious as it fuels their bodies in preparation for class.”
Davis said parents may have the option of ordering what would be delivered to their child in the classroom, although the choices will have to be streamlined. She said there are questions she wants to make sure her team answers such as:
- How can we make sure that we provide the same quality of meal with a hot option?
- How do we package it so that it looks good and is appealing to the students?
“Kids have already faced a lot of changes,” Davis said. “We want to make things as familiar as possible.”
Meals would most likely be brought to the classroom individually wrapped for health reasons.
Elmore County School Superintendent Richard Dennis said that on June 19th, the State Department of Education will be announcing procedures and guidelines for opening schools in the fall.
“We have been tasked to update our plan and we plan to have one ready to go for that announcement,” Dennis said.
Davis said that whatever that plan may
look like, she is sure that her staff will be up to the challenge.
“They have gone beyond what is expected of them,” she said. “They are the hands
and feet of our program. They love our kids and our community.”
