Earlier this month, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed hundreds of school nutrition professionals from across the nation to advocate for adequate funds for healthy school meals. The event was part of the School Nutrition Association's (SNA) 38th annual Legislative Action Conference and took place in Washington, DC. SNA represents 55,000 school nutrition professionals and is committed to further improving the nutritional quality of school meals and advancing nutrition education for America's students. Miguel Villarreal, Director of Food and Nutritional Services for the Novato Unified School District, in California, attended the conference and answered some of my questions.
To do your job, you are handed about a buck per student and expected to feed them a nutritious lunch. How often do you want to curl up in a corner of the cafeteria and ease your frustration by devouring a Chocolate Beer and Whiskey cupcake
For each free and reduced-price lunch served, the Federal government provides $2.68 and $2.28 respectively. In 2007, Senate bill (SB) 80 set the state meal reimbursement rate for all free and reduced price meals at $0.2195, and tied state meal reimbursement to meeting certain nutrition standards. However, this rate was reduced to $0.022 for June 2008 because meal participation exceeded the appropriation cap for 2007-08. This year will be even worse with the California Department of Education projecting a rate reduction to less