Urgency, fear and passion, all fueling determination to make sure school children are fed, filled a room in the Performing Arts Center on the Fannin County High School campus last week.
Nutrition directors from seven North Georgia school districts met Thursday, May 12, to tell U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock’s Outreach Representative Andrea Wiggins that something has to be done now or children will suffer when the 2023 school year begins in August.
“School nutrition is a lifeline and that lifeline is unraveling,” Fannin County School Superintendent Dr. Michael Gwatney said.
Patricia Partin of Gilmer County said, “School lunch may be the only meal these kids have.”
“No one has been willing to listen to our pleas,” Fannin County School Nutrition Director Martha Williams told Wiggins.
These urgent sentiments echoed among the representatives as they broke down specific concerns for Wiggins about the devastating effect USDA National School Lunch Program regulations bring to their ability to feed children. The effect is multiplied by supply chain problems, labor issues, and vendors unwilling to bid on food contracts.
Besides Gwatney, Williams and Partin, those pressing for help were Cindy Jones of Union County, Scott Richardson of Dawson County, Cheryl Jons of Hall County, Julie Knight- Brown of Lumpkin County and Beth Thompson of Pickens County.
All these school systems, just like all the ones that participate in the National School Lunch Program, will see waivers to menu requirements disappear at the end of this school year. These waivers have allowed food substitutions that, in turn, have allowed schools to be compliant with federal regulations.
“We live and die by regulations,” Richardson said. Schools are looking at being expected to meet new federal regulations when “we can’t get the product.”
Beginning with the start of school in August, meeting requirements includes an 80% whole grain menu and a ten percent reduction in salt content.
These restrictions will make an already bad situation worse.
Thompson pointed to “all the food going in the garbage can because of a federal mandate,” referring to the lunch program rules.
Jones provided an example of seeing children eat their hotdog and throw away the whole wheat bun. She told of seeing this countless times in her cafeterias.
Richardson went farther, comparing a whole wheat biscuit, such as required by the federal government, to a buttermilk biscuit, which is what students eat at home. He said the whole wheat quality is completely inferior and asked if anyone had ever tried to open a whole wheat biscuit.
Hearing the food rules, Wiggins said, “they’re just weird.”
The federal menu regulations also affect the food suppliers. “We are high volume, low profit for their needs,” Williams said.
As a result, Fannin County’s current supplier notified the system they would not be renewing the contract to supply food for the 2023 school year. This came as a complete surprise since Williams began the year thinking the contract would last for the next four years.
The vendor blamed high fuel costs, driver shortages and labor shortages in their warehouse for backing out of the deal with the schools.
Fannin joined five other counties in a buying power effort to find food early this year, but no one bid on the contract.
Currently, Fannin, Pickens and Gilmer counties are bidding a contract together, hoping the Highway 515 corridor will provide a route suppliers can serve profitably.
But, so far, no bids have been received and the bid offer is only days from expiring.
The high cost of the government regulated menu items stands in the way because the required specialty items have only limited commercial appeal. This means producing and distributing them is not as profitable for corporations, so as business recovers from the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic the food producers are concentrating on profits.
This continues a snowball effect as schools have already absorbed price increases as much as 12 times the cost of the same items last year to stay in compliance with the school lunch program.
Richardson and Gwatney echoed agreement that there is an absolute disconnect with what is happening on the ground locally and what Washington, D.C. thinks.
Jons substantiated this by saying USDA officials came to one brief meeting in Georgia with one school nutrition director that was really nothing more “than a photo op.”
“I have yet to talk to any superintendent that is comfortable with what is on the horizon,” Gwatney said, pointing out the feelings being expressed from the seven districts represented were not confined to just those districts.
The districts represented some 50,000 students being fed every school day, twice a day – breakfast and lunch.
Hall County alone fed five-and-a-half million meals last year, Jones said. “We see more kids in a day than anyone else in our school district.”
Fannin County is on track to feed half-a-million meals this year.
“We need some help,” Gwatney said.
The seven districts represented spoke for more than three percent of the students in schools all over Georgia.
The numbers struck a chord with Warnock’s representative. Wiggins thanked the group for “ringing the alarm” and promised to help spread the word.