Dariens elementary schools are dropping the federal National School Lunch Program. Although the move will cost $50,000 a year in grants a year, Finance Director Richard Huot said it will provide flexibility that should increase participation in school lunches enough to offset the loss.
"We feel that the recommendations coming down from the state and federal government impede us and make our rules much more complex than they need to be. They will impact us in a negative way in terms of labor," Huot told the Board of Education Tuesday night.
Huot said the school administration has reservations about new mandates under the federal program that require cafeterias to provide free water for all students and salad bars and restrict the types of milk that can be served.
"If we don't have water fountains in the serving area, we can do one of two things. We can put pitchers of water on the tables and let K-5 kids fill their own drinks or give them free bottles of water," Huot said. The pitchers would increase the work of cleaning up after lunches and the free bottles would cut into revenue for the lunch program, he said.
In the future, schools will not be permitted to serve low-fat, low-sugar chocolate milk, which Huot believes will decrease the number of kids buying milk. He added that salad is not popular enough at the elementary level to justify salad bars.
The middle school and high school do not currently participate in the program, and the elementary schools have been considering dropping it for some time. Huot said that the new restrictions were the icing on the cake.
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