D.C. Schools Chancellor Set to Ax Food Services Team?

D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson: Hot over cafeteria deficits

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Hinting at a major shakeup in D.C. Public Schools' cafeteria operations, Chancellor Kaya Henderson says she does not believe food services chief Jeffrey Mills and his staff are capable of getting multi-million-dollar deficits under control.

In a recent letter to D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Henderson rejected suggestions that D.C. schools run their own food services, rather than outsourcing those operations to contractors, saying, "I do not have confidence that my current food service staff has the capacity to manage a self-run food service program, even at a small scale."

Cheh, author of the city's "Healthy Schools Act," had suggested that Henderson undertake a pilot program to test the in-house approach. But Henderson wrote, "To date, we have had significant challenges managing the few contracts we have in place. Our team has not demonstrated proficiency in human capital management or project management."

Apparently, Henderson has lost patience with Mills, who was hired little more than two years ago amid high hopes that DCPS could vastly improve the quality of school meals while also bringing the food service budget more into balance. Saying food service was "not a core competency" of the schools, former Chancellor Michele Rhee ordered cafeteria operations outsourced to a large food service management company. Chartwells won the bidding and under Mills' direction food quality markedly improved. But deficits once again soared out of control, creating $14 million in red ink at last count.

Mills has tried to blame the huge budget shortfalls on waste and inefficiency on Chartwells part, as well as a weak contract. He has argued that the schools could do better by ditching Chartwells and bringing food service operations back in-house. But Henderson and her top echelon of managers have refused to give Mills' plan an audience. Instead, Henderson ordered Mills to put the contract up for bid again.

The latest proposal foresees dividing the district's 121 schools among several different contractors with strict provisions for food quality. Currently, Chartwells serves most of the district's schools, but caterer Revolution Foods has been providing meals to seven schools, while another seven get their food scratch-cooked by chefs from D.C. Central Kitchen.

Mills has pointed out that most of the nation's large school districts manage their own cafeteria operations. Experts agree that providing meals in-house also is more economical than outsourcing those services to for-profit corporations--in theory at least.

For instance, Chartwells’ average cost per meal here is $4.21, compared to $3.06 for D.C. Central Kitchen and $2.87 per meal for Revolution Foods, according to Mills. Officials said Chartwells runs up the cost with numerous contractor fees, and by paying inflated prices for many supplies and ingredients. Mills’ plan called for severing ties with Chartwells and eliminating food service deficits by 2016.

In addition to Cheh, many parents and food activists support Mills' vision of a school district that makes its own meals. An on-line petition to that effect recently gathered more than 200 signatures. It was delivered to Henderson this week. Henderson has agreed to meet with a committee of parents and food access organizations that currently advises Mills' staff.

But Henderson sounds like she's already looking for someone to replace Mills. "Before I am willing to in-source food service, even as a pilot, I must have complete confidence that the team I have in place puts DCPS in the best position to be successful," Henderson wrote Cheh. "Along with monitoring our new food service contracts, my efforts in food service will be devoted to ensuring we have solid management in place in the coming year."

Is Kaya Henderson Turning Out the Lights on D.C. School Food?

Henderson:Preparing meals is not a core competency for schools

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

In a chilling rebuke, Chancellor Kaya Henderson has disavowed the ambitious plans for improved D.C. school food set forth by DCPS food services Director Jeffrey Mills and instead has ordered her staff to proceed immediately with a new contract to outsource cafeteria operations and try to stem the mounting deficits attributed to the system's current vendor, Chartwells.

In a letter to D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Henderson distanced herself from some 1,500 pages of documents Mills' staff had recently sent the Council detailing how Chartwells has contributed to some $14 million in red ink over the past year. Meanwhile, Henderson and her key management staff have refused to hear Mills' proposal to ditch Chartwells and bring much of the system's food service operations in-house.

Mills sent the proposal, in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, to Cheh. But Henderson withdrew it, saying "the views in the PowerPoint do not reflect the direction that DCPS food services is moving in...."

Henderson told Cheh that "some of my staff members may not necessarily agree with my decision" and that she was sending a revised response to questions generated by Cheh. Echoing former Chancellor Michelle Rhee's decision to hire Chartwells four years ago, Henderson wrote that "food service (like facilities maintenance and construction) is not a core competence of ours," adding that "the option of bringing food service back in house is premature at this point."

Henderson is scheduled to appear for questioning before the Council today, and Cheh, author of the city's Healthy Schools Act, plans to ask the chancellor a number of food-related questions. School officials have yet to explain whether annual deficit spending--now averaging more than $12 per year--is supporting better food, high labor costs, waste and inefficiency, corporate profits for Chartwells, or some combination of all of the above.

The emerging schism between Henderson and Mills casts a pall over a food service operation that otherwise was thought to be showing great progress since Mills was hired two years ago. Mills had forced Chartwells to completely revamp its menus, removing things like Pop-Tarts, chicken nuggets and strawberry milk in favor of low-sugar cereals, fresh vegetables and more lunch items prepared from scratch by school kitchen staff. But while Chartwells ostensibly was hired to gain control of budget shortfalls in school food service, the deficits according to Mills have only gotten worse.

For instance, the average loss per school in 2007-2008, the last year DCPS self-operated food service, the average loss per school totaled $80,000. That jumped to $115,447 the first year Chartwells took over, and in subsequent years has run around $90,000 per school.

The total food service deficit for the current school year is expected to reach $14.35 million, or more than double the red ink DCPS cafeterias generated in 2004, when the schools ran their own food service.

According to Mills' staff, Chartwells' average cost per meal is $4.21, compared to $3.06 for D.C. Central Kitchen, which prepares meals for seven schools under a pilot program, and $2.87 per meal for Revolution Foods, which caters to another seven schools. Officials said Chartwells runs up the cost with numerous contractor fees, and by paying inflated prices for many supplies and ingredients. Mills' plan to sever ties with Chartwells called for eliminating food service deficits by 2016.

Chartwells also collects millions of dollars in rebates from its suppliers. Under federal law, Chartwells is supposed to pass those rebates on to the schools, but officials said they still aren't sure they are receiving all of the funds to which they are entitled.

Chartwells has a "cost reimbursable" contract with the schools, meaning it is reimbursed for all of its expenses, as well as being paid an annual management fee and a small fee for each meal it services. Under its contract with the schools, Chartwells is supposed to hold deficit spending to no more than $6 million annually or forfeit its management fee. But according to one official, Chartwells has forfeited its management fee every year the contract has been in place while deficits zoomed out of control.

Mills, whose background was in developing restaurant concepts in New York prior to being hired as food services director for the schools here, has chafed under the Chartwells contract, hoping eventually to build a system in which the schools produced their own meals from whole ingredients. In anticipation of such a system, the Healthy School Act called on the city to provide a central kitchen and food processing facility that has yet to materialize.

According to Mills, only 8 of the nation's 135 largest school districts outsource their cafeteria operations to large food service companies such as Chartwells, Sodexo and Aramark. Neighboring Fairfax County, for instance, runs its own food service without creating deficits. But the food served there also is regarded a far inferior to the meals children in D.C. receive.

But in light of the school chancellor's latest move, Mills' vision for meals cooked fresh by local chefs may be a long way off.

D.C. Schools Food Director Calls Chartwells Contract "Crap"

D.C. schools food services chief Jeffrey Mills

D.C. Publice Schools food services chief Jeffrey Mills is deeply disappointed with the district's contract with cafeteria giant Chartwells, The Slow Cook has learned, calling the agreement "crap" and outlining plans to establish nine satellite production kitchens the schools can use to make their own food sometime in the future.

Two new pilot food programs--one with D.C. Central Kitchen, another with Revolution Foods--have revealed the cost of lunch they provide to be $1 cheaper than what DCPS pays Chartwells. The pilot contractors are paid a flat rate to provide meals, while Chartwells receives an annual management fee, a fee for each meal served, plus reimbursement for all of its expenses.

What's more, Mills says he has to "police everything they [Chartwells] do," and still finds Tyson chicken, high-fructose corn syrup and other objectionable items on kids' cafeteria trays, even after he has specifically rejected them.

Mills is said to be convinced that he could "save $10 million" if D.C. Central Kitchen and Revolution Foods replaced Chartwells entirely, but those companies are not equipped to handle more than half the district's 123 schools. Mills envisions serving food cooked from scratch in all of the district's elementary schools, for instance. But that, he has said privately, is not likely to happen in the coming year.

Former schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee hired Chartwells in 2008 after declaring the schools unable to manage their own food service. At the time, according to former Chief Operating Officer Anthony Tata, the schools were losing between $11 million and $14 million annually on their cafeteria operations, buying pre-made "re-heat" meals trucked in from a suburban factory.

The initial contract with Chartwells called for a $28 million food services budget, under which Chartwells would reduce the flow of red ink to no more than $6 million annually. But Mills now says that "only $1 million of the reduction was guaranteed."

Chartwells also caused the schools a good deal of embarrassment. In January of last year, after spending a week in the kitchen of my daughter's elementary school, I published a series of blog posts detailing the highly-processed frozen convenience foods Chartwells routinely served at lunch--chicken nuggets, tater tots, "beef crumbles" and grilled cheese sandwiches made in Los Angeles and re-heated in their plastic wrappers. Breakfast was even worse. Along with frozen scrambled eggs and "french toast sticks" with high-fructose corn syrup, kids were eating Apple Jacks cereal doused with strawberry-flavored milk, Pop-Tarts, Giant Goldfish Grahams and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.

On some days, children as young as five consumed the equivalent of 15 teaspoons of sugar before classes even started.

Subsequently I learned from documents obtained through the Freedeom of Information Act that Chartwells had turned over to the schools more than $1 million in rebates it had collected from large food manufacturers such as Kellogg, Pepperidge Farm and Otis Spunkmeyer. An assistant attorney general for New York State has said the rebating practice creates "an inherent conflict of interest" in the choice of foods served to children. Food service companies operating under a "cost reimbursable" contract, as is the case in D.C., are required to credit the schools for all rebates or discounts they receive.

The rebates Chartwells reported to D.C. schools represented five percent of total purchases, compared to the 10 to 15 percent that New York Assistant Atty. Gen. John F. Carroll says is the industry average he has encountered in his investigation of rebating practices there. It took D.C. school officials nine 9 months to get an accounting of food rebates from Chartwells, and Mills is said to be suspcious still that the schools are not receiving their due.

Chartwells is a subsidiary of Compass Group, a British-based international food service corporation that reported $23.5 billion in sales last year.

In December 2009, Tata tapped Mills, a restaurant developer from New York City, to be food services director, filling a position that had been vacant for more than a year. Within months after my expose of the food Chartwells was serving, Mills decided to remove all flavored milk from D.C. Public Schools and undertook an item-by-item overhaul of the Chartwells menu.

Around that same time, the D.C. Council approved a "Healthy Schools Act" that provided more money for school meals--10 cents for breakfast, 10 cents for lunch, and 5 cents for every lunch containing a locally-grown component. Consequently, meals look substantially different in D.C. schools today. Kids can choose from organic yogurt and home-baked muffins for breakfast. Lunches range from a scratch-cooked spinach lasagna to roasted bone-in chicken to a Cajunp-seasoned tilapia filet.

This year schools have saved $1 million on food, even while serving breakfast in the classrooms of most elementary schools for the first time and implementing a supper program in 99 schools. Breakfast in the classroom boosts participation and brings in federal susbsidy dollars that can be used to improve food quality. The supper program also is a money maker. Meals cost $1.40, but are reimbursed by the U.S. Department of Agiculture to the tune of $2.92 each through the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program.

With the addition of these two programs, the schools expect to serve 2 million more meals this year. Still, participation in the lunch line is down 1.5 percent.

The trouble now is the kids frequently won't eat the roasted local sweet potatoes or the lovingly prepared green bean salad. They need coaching, and schools need to reach out more to parents. Mills reportedly would like to see principals and teachers eating with the students. "Motivated principals make all the difference," Mills is quoted as saying. But the schools face "huge challenges with internal staffing."

Local Peaches Mystery Solved

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

On Tuesday I contacted D.C. schools wondering why the "local peach" that was supposed to be on my daughter's breakfast tray looked so much like canned peaches instead. I also inquired where parents needed to look to find the ingredients for school menu items, as required by the new "Healthy Schools Act."

Yesterday I received a kind of robo e-mail from the Office of the Chief Operating Officer (Anthony Tata) clearing up the mystery of the canned-versus-local peaches, plus much more that I thought might interest parents. Here is the complete text of that e-mail:

"Good Afternoon, Mr. Bruske:

"Thank you for your email about your student’s peaches, and for bringing your concerns to our attention. Jeff Mills [food services director] followed-up on your concern and visited the school to discover that Stoddert was indeed off-menu. We double-checked with all our schools, and Stoddert was the one school to serve canned peaches that day, which is unacceptable. A formal complaint has been lodged with Chartwells, and we are re-doubling our efforts to ensure that this does not happen again.

"Thank you for being a watchdog for your student’s school. Parents like you keep us, and our vendors, accountable. We want to make sure your blog readers know the process for lodging a menu complaint if they have concerns at any time about the food served at their schools: they should email officeoftheCOO.inquiries@dc.gov, which is checked regularly throughout the week. Each email is taken seriously, and we always appreciate when parents and community members bring things to our attention.

"In regard to the nutritional information you asked about, we are still working to upload all the information and working with our vendors to ensure that it is correct. In a few months we will be revamping our entire menu website to be more interactive. We will be sure to let you know when we’re about to launch.

"Thanks, as always, for your inquiries"

I feel a little embarrassed making Jeff Mills go to all that trouble. It's scary to think that a few missing peaches can ruin his whole day and draw him away from all the important work he's doing trying to upgrade the food for the D.C. Public Schools' 45,000 students.

Still, I can only report what I see. And if we're truly concerned about the food kids are eating, the only thing that really matters is what actually ends up on their cafeteria trays.

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.

Is There a Plan for D.C. School Food?

Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

D.C. schools currently serve kids some of the worst processed convenience foods the industry has to offer, grotesquely out of step with the enthusiastic rhetoric generated around Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign. And while they claim to be making improvements, school officials under Chancellor Michelle Rhee seem uwilling of incapable or articulating a vision for replacing the daily regime of frozen and packaged junk provided by its paid food serviced contractor--Chartwells--with real food.

This week I saw a very different approach when I spent time in a "culinary boot camp" outside Denver, CO. There, more than 30 cooks and food service directors from schools around the state immersed themselves in an intensive, four-day session to learn how to better manage their finances and operate kitchens that can create wholesome meals from scratch.

The "boot camp" is one step in a process of improving school food that also involves a professional assessment of food service operations to identify ways of freeing up cash, making kitchen operations more efficient, and serving healthier food. A state wellness organization responsible for organizing the boot camps--LiveWell Colorado--hopes that these initial training sessions are just the beginning of a process that could eventually transform food service in schools across the state, eliminating processed convenience foods from school cafeterias.

D.C. Schools have a new food service director, Jeffrey Mills, who previously had no experience at all in school food. His entire career has focused on developing restaurant concepts, most notably in New York City. Wouldn't it make sense for the District of Columbia, rather than asking Mr. Mills to re-invent the wheel, to emulate a progressive state such as Colorado and order a professional assessment of its food service operations?

Michelle Rhee said it was necessary to hire a professional food service company like Chartwells to get a grip on the $10 million deficits D.C. schools were running annually in its food services. Now we know that Chartwells is really about collecting millions of dollars in fees, money that could be going to improve the food kids are eating.

The good news is that there are professionals in school food service who are passionate about serving children wholesome meals made with fresh ingredients and who know how to manage finances and operations to make that kind of meal service a reality. Isn't it time for D.C. schools to get real and make like Colorado?