A glass half-full perspective

By Constance Newman

I’m not too concerned about the lack of a clear vision for the future for DC school food. I thought the Tuesday night meeting was energizing in that there was a large attendance of concerned parents and other community members. It’s only been a year since Rhee’s team has tried to make change, and the hiring of Jeff Mills seems like a very good first step.

From the little he said, Mills seems to “get it” in terms of our interests in reducing processed food, increasing local produce, etc. I trust them when they say it’s hard to make big changes right away. The fact that they are removing flavored milk is huge (way beyond the vaunted Institute of Medicine standards), and now they have awarded contracts for pilot programs to two firms that are very committed to local, farm-fresh produce.

DCPS has been pushed by The Healthy Meals Act to make changes, so maybe they’re learning as they go. That’s okay with me. I’m thankful they are making Chartwells compete and that they’re open to new ideas. In fact, if they were forced to write a strategic plan right now, I’m afraid we wouldn’t like it.

Maybe they’ll figure out that it would be more cost-effective to hire a non-profit entity headed by a local chef. Jamie Oliver, DC style! They didn’t talk about it, but Cathal Armstrong and other chefs are supposedly going to take over food services at Tyler Elementary. That’s the model that many of us are more excited about. Not because they’re chefs, per se, though that is important, but because it’s a non-profit venture. I agree with Ed that the idea that there’s money to be made in school food service is highly suspect. Schools are prohibited by law from making a profit when running school lunch programs, but somehow private companies are allowed to?

I’d like to see a rigorous evaluation of the pilots and Chartwells. The fact that they are private probably complicates the ability of D.C. to publish information about food quality and cost structure (and that’s another problem with outsourcing to for-profit firms—lack of transparency). What is D.C. Public Schools going to use as their criteria? Tony Tata mentioned the need to serve healthy meals while keeping costs down and participation up. With more people watching, how is DCPS going to measure and demonstrate the successes and failures of the different models? What are the criteria that we’d like them to use?

And what was the ever-so-brief mention of a school garden program (“pilot”) that Jeff Mills said we’ll be hearing about in the future? It did seem like we weren’t getting a full picture of all of the models being discussed and/or planned, especially when this was mentioned rather surreptitiously. Hopefully there will be more good news in our future.

As Jody Tick said in her post yesterday, DCPS needs to involve the community directly at this experimental stage. We can help set the criteria they will use to measure whether the new and old models are really delivering. We can help engage parents to support school food reforms. An advisory committee sounds perfect.

Here’s to seeing the glass half full.

Constance Newman is a member of Parents for Better D.C. School Food

A Shared Vision for DCPS Food Services

By Jody Tick

There has been a lot of buzz and excitement about the new leadership and direction of the DCPS food services. The conversation continued yesterday at a DCPS Community Forum, where about 60 parents, teachers, food service professionals, and community organizations gathered to ask questions of DCPS Food Services Director Jeff Mills, Chief Operations Officer Tony Tata, and Director of Health & Wellness Diana Bruce.

As an active DCPS parent, and a program director at the Capital Area Food Bank, I recognized almost every face in the room - fellow parent activist Constance Newman, garden educator Kacie Warner, and anti-hunger advocate Kristin Roberts, to name a few. Each of those wonderful stakeholders could be so much more than just a face in the crowd. We could be valuable assets to the DCPS school meal system, and advocates in support of the changes you plan to make.

Since coming in to town a few months ago, the DCPS food services team has undertaken incredible efforts to transform D.C. school meals. This has been a challenge, given that D.C. school meals have a rocky history plagued by contract mismanagement, financial accountability issues, food safety concerns, and inconsistent leadership. Jeff Mills and his team have inherited a 60,000 meal-a-day beast of a system, and have been quick to make big promises about how they’re going to turn it around on a dime. To their credit, they’ve made huge expansions to breakfast in the classroom, piloting supper programs at after-school programs, taking on two new vendors as pilot projects, and hiring new staff. And there are big promises of things to come, such as a garden-kitchen educational program, special celebratory events, a totally new menu based on unprocessed, fresh foods, 20% local produce, and compliance with Institute of Medicine standards. The list goes on.

But who’s calling the shots? What is the end goal? Where are we headed?

All the people in that room last night are on the same side as Jeff and his team. We want the great things for our kids and our community that they rattled off - more fresh, unprocessed foods, more local produce, better access to school meals. But we understand that it won’t be easy to get those foods on D.C. cafeteria trays, and then get kids to eat them. You’ll need the community to be your allies in this. But a few things need to change.

First, you must engage us. We need a formal system for providing input and giving feedback. It is not enough for you to stand in front of us and tell us what’s happening. We need to have a formal “Advisory Committee” comprised of a wide swath of community members and national experts to be a part of the planning and execution of the new DCPS school meal operation. We need this NOW, as plans for the future are being shaped and defined, not after they have already been developed.

Second, slow down. Nobody is expecting a barrage of reforms that will solve every aspect of the DCPS school meals all at once. The issues plaguing the DCPS school food system run deep, and have been decades in the making (as you probably know better than we do). We would rather see a few simple, measurable goals achieved than dozens of efforts pulled together quickly.

Third, show us a strategic plan. This city has seen too many well-intentioned but piecemeal efforts to improve the health and well-being of our youth. We need to be thinking not months, but years into the future at what DCPS food services will look like. Tony Tata himself said that DCPS has no idea what this operation will look like after this year, and that’s unacceptable. Other large, urban school districts have overcome the same issues we are facing and are serving the types of meals we strive to serve. Let us learn from their successes and failures, and develop a strategic plan to get where we all want to go, with attention to the unique strengths and weaknesses we have here in the nation’s capital.

Fourth, be transparent. Keep us in the loop with your plans, the criteria you use to evaluate foods, how you spend our taxpayer dollars, where your food is coming from and what’s down the pipeline. It’s not enough for you to give us vague responses to our questions from time to time - stay ahead of the curve and provide us with concrete information.

You can have our 100% support in these efforts if you engage us, and make calculated, strategic change towards our common goals, and are transparent with the community you’re serving. And believe me, it is going to take our support and buy-in on a much deeper level to realize the ambitious goals that we all have for D.C. school food. We owe it to the thousands of children who depend on these meals each day to work together on this while we have the chance. Let’s get it right.

Jody Tick is a member of Parents for Better D.C. School Food.

D.C. Schools Wait Nine Months for Rebate Accounting from Chartwells

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

D.C. Schools Chief Operating Officer Anthony Tata told The Washington Post yesterday that he has been waiting some nine months for Chartwells, the school system's hired food sesrvice provider, to furnish an itemized accounting of the rebates it receives from food manufacturers in connection with its purchases for school meals.

Tata made the disclosure to Post education reporter Bill Turque after I reported here yesterday that Chartwells since beginning its contract with D.C. schools in the fall of 2008 had collected more than $1 million in rebates from major food suppliers who are seen as discounting popular brands in order to place them before impressionable children on cafeteria trays. Under federal laws governing the national school meals program, food providers such as Chartwells are required to credit the schools for any rebates they receive and furnish a detailed accounting of where the rebates come from upon request from the school district.

Tata told Turque I was "just flat wrong" when I reported yesterday that school officials had not asked Chartwells for such an accounting until after I filed a Freedom of Information Act request last month seeking the information. In fact, Tata said, he had been pressing Chartwells for the information since last October, and it had only just arrived.

Under its contract with D.C. schools, Chartwells receives a $1 million administrative fee annually, plus fees on each meal served that total more than $1 million each year. Chartwells provides food service in 122 D.C. schools. In a number of ways, Tata and other school officials have indicated they are not entirely happy with the industrially-process convenience foods Chartwells has been serving. DCPS recently sought bids on two pilot programs that would each ostensibly provide improved food to seven schools across the city "to create some competition," in Tata's words.

I filed my FOIA request for the rebate itemization June 1. On June 4, I asked schools spokeswoman Jennifer Calloway in an e-mail, "Has DCPS ever requested from Chartwells a breakdown of where the 'rebates' are coming from according to specific manufacturers or suppliers, or even by category of product?" Calloway replied, "Tata's team is reviewing your request, we'll get back to you Monday." But they did not get back to me.

More than a month later, on July 8, I again asked Calloway, "whether DCPS has ever asked Chartwells for a breakdown on where--meaning which manufacturers or vendors--all of the rebates come from that are reflected on Chartwell's monthly invoices." Later that day, Calloway responded: "We have requested a breakdown. You need to file a FOIA for DCPS to share it--and you've already done so. When it's complete, the General Counsel's office will contact you."

I regret if I misinterpreted what the schools spokeswoman said. Apparently, the information Tata had been trying to get hold of from Chartwells since last October arrived sometime between my last e-mail exchange with Jennifer Calloway on Thursday and Tata's conversation with The Post on Monday. It was also on Thursday that I interviewed a procurement official with Foodbuy, a sister company of Chartwells that is responsible for negotiating food purchases and rebates with manufacturers.

Tata further told Bill Turque that I was "irresponsible" for referring to the food rebates as "kickbacks." But I did not coin that term in reference to food rebates. It may be that Mr. Tata is simply unaware that "kickbacks" is a common usage in food service circles to describe the system whereby powerful companies such as Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark expect and receive generous rebates on a host of products, much the same way that grocers expect and receive payments from manufacturers in order to give their products prominent display on supermarket shelves.

In fact, Ann Cooper, one of the most prominent school food directors in the country, now in charge of food for schools in Boulder, CO, used the word "kickbacks" in a Twitter item about my story that she broadcast yesterday.

The $1 million-plus in rebates Chartwells had collected through February of this year represented five percent of the total purchases reported on invoices the company submitted to D.C. Public Schools for reimbursement. In other jurisdictions, that percentage is much higher. It will be interesting to see the details of where Chartwells says the rebates came from, and how quickly the schools make that information public.

Meanwhile, Tata told Turque that schools food services director Jeffrey Mills is reviewing menu changes in the food Chartwells serves for the upcoming school year with an eye toward improvements. "And the rebate, if there is one, will not factor at all into our decision making," Tata said.

You Call This Food?

By Ed Bruske

I was ready to have a perfectly civilized discussion--blog-to-blog--with Sam Fromartz over at ChewsWise on the subject of what we can do to get kids to eat better when I was stopped dead in my tracks by the lunch being served at my daughter's elementary school here in the nation's capital. Look at the photo above and tell me what you see. Do you see the same thing I do? French fries, a bag of Sun Chips, and an 8-ounce carton of strawberry-flavored milk.

You almost have to rub your eyes and take a second look. Can this really be true? Hello, Jamie Oliver! Not all the bad school food is in Huntington, W.Va. We've got the same stuff right here in Washington, D.C., barely a mile from the White House.

To my knowledge, Michelle Obama has never addressed the glycemic bomb being served daily to public school children right outside her door. But I could be wrong. Yes, just a mile or so from the White House, where we're told over and over the Obamas are hard on the case, solving the nation's childhood obesity epidemic, kids in elementary school are being served chips, fries and strawberry milk for lunch.

Oh, wait. I forgot the ketchup. Two foil packets of it. That should count for something. And as far as chips go, Sun Chips--made from corn, whole wheat, rice flour, whole oat flour--are probably the lesser of many evils. Still....

I actually found it heartrending to watch my daughter's lunch group--10- and 11-year-olds--waiting patiently for their midday meal, first at their tables, then pressed against a wall in a queue near the door to the food line, only to emerge at the other end with this on their Styrofoam trays. Some also had a mealy-looking chili with beans. Some had a fresh pear. But under federal "offered-versus-served" rules, kids only need to take three of the offered items to qualify for a federally-subsidized meal. That's how you get fries, chips and strawberry-flavored milk. (Fries count as a vegetable, and the milk protein, the chips grain. Get it?)

Yes, we can have a conversation about how to get kids to eat healthier foods. But first, we need to ask, Where are the adults in this picture? Children have not yet reached the age of consent. Grownups are supposed to take care of them. Yet when you enter a public school cafeteria, you step into a kind of culinary gulag where for years the adults grinding away anonymously inside have done their best to keep the truth of what they are doing hidden from the public at large. And the public at large has been just as happy not knowing the details. This was a matter we conveniently left in the hands of "professionals"--food service workers, nutritionists, government regulators, food industry lobbyists--who have spent the last several decades devising ways to make "food" for children that grownups don't have to pay for.

Now, with Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" being aired on network television, and school meals showing up in vivid color in the blogosphere, we are finally getting a glimmer of what "school lunch" really means. It's not a joke any more. What we feed children has consequences. And the pictures are ugly.

Yet it is obvious that children--and especially what they eat--are not a priority. We would much rather spend billions fighting foreign wars, building tanks, dropping bombs. Honestly, what we get from most politicians is lip service and a nickel tossed into the collection plate. We are on the brink of losing our collective memory of what constitutes real food. Yet no one is accountable. We are not to judge the "lunch ladies" too harshly. They are doing the best they can. We are not to judge the food service directors too harshly. They also are doing the best they can. We should not judge our local government leaders too harshly. They depend on federal dollars. We should not judge parents too harshly. They are busy working to make ends meat....

Would anyone like to step forward and take responsibility for feeding our children in school?

The final indignity came when I was abruptly stopped from taking further photographs in the lunch room by the school's assistant principal. She whisked me off to a conference room where the principal was having lunch with teachers (what would happen if the adults at school had to eat the same food as the kids?) The principal told me she had been admonished for the series of articles I wrote from the school's kitchen back in January, a glimpse behind the curtain that revealed the "fresh cooked" scheme the school system had recently implemented in collaboration with its contracted food service provider, Chartwells-Thompson, was nothing of the sort. To continue taking photographs of the food, the principal said, I would need clearance from higher up. "I don't want to get in trouble again," she said.

Turns out there was an aftermath to my expose of the D.C. school kitchen. The young kitchen manager I profiled, who liked so much to add shredded cheese to boost the flavor of all those industrially-processed dishes she was heating in the steamer, has disappeared, presumably re-assigned.

I'm trying to square this with what Anthony Tata, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's chief operating officer, told The Washington Post about me and that series of articles on Feb. 12: "I think it's great a parent is super-involved and we are soliciting his input as we go forward with our program changes," Tata said.

Blah, blah, blah.

I accuse the adults responsible for school food of gross indifference. I accuse all of us of failing to step up to the plate. I challenge Chancellor Rhee and Anthony Tata to have a real conversation with parents about the food children are eating in school. But let us not fail because we refused to look at the problem square in the eye.

Ed Bruske writes The Slow Cook blog.