Dan's Papers - August 17, 2007 - Sag Harbor High School to Choose Between Junk Food and $$$

In the good old days, schools served kids some slop whipped up by the lunch lady and called it a day. But in Sag Harbor, it is not so easy. Pierson High School has been in the news lately, because the staff there can't seem to get a handle on the cafeteria situation. The status is complicated, involving contract pullouts, government policy, coordinators, school officials and other people with important job titles.

During fierce contract negotiations between the Sag harbor School District and a company called the Whitson's Culinary Group, which has been the food provider for Pierson in the past, a complete breakdown occurred when Sag Harbor school officials had to take into account a new government program that subsidizes food for children, under the condition that the food is healthy. When Whitson heard that, they reportedly backed out of the negotiation, stating that they could not make any money without having the ability to serve unhealthy snacks. The negotiation probably sounded something like this, "What are you, an idiot? How the hell am I supposed to make money serving carrots to kids?"

But it didn't matter to the school, because the logic was they could use a government program that offers free food to the school that they can sell to the kids, assuming that the school follows strict guidelines. The name of the subsidies program is called the National School Lunch Program and according to Superintendent Kathryn Holden, if they don't take advantage of it, they are losing around $30,000 in revenue while serving food to the kids that isn't that good for them. Sounds pretty cut and dry, yay for Pierson.

And so, Pierson decided to go back to the way things were done before, by hiring a lunch lady and serving food that they get from the government, which sounded simple enough. However, now that Whitson is out of the picture, they don't have the lunch ladies that the company hired and the school needs three of them to operate successfully. They also need to buy new cash registers, which costs money. Money that they didn't think about when they backed away from Whitson. One genius brought this up at a meeting, causing a ruckus, becuase everybody started to rethink everything. How much would the lunch ladies cost? How much would the registers cost? A study must be done!

But the school year is fast approaching, so if they choose to get the study and analysis done, who is going to run the cafeteria in the meantime?

Fortunately, Cappelletti Italian Grill has come to save the day in the past and whipped up some excellent Italian cooking for the kids, so while the school is doing its deep cost analysis of running a lunchroom effectively, Cappelletti could do the job. Right? RIGHT? Certainly that would be worth it. For the love of God, it would be worth it, right?

Well, nobody is too sure. According to one school official, the cost of doing that might be considerable, maybe even more then the original plan of working with Whitson's, so maybe they should have an analysis on that option, or just forget the whole thing all together. So a decision was not made.

Who would have thought feeding kids would get so frigging complicated?

As the trouble continued to unfold even further, it was suggested that they just say, 'screw the federal government' and abandon the subsidized guidelines all together, because it was making things too complicated. But that is not an option, because the school is under contract with the government.

If they break the contract, the government might come in with authorities and put everybody in jail, or they might get some kind of an official letter, or they might get a stern look from a government lunch room inspector, which could be really embarrassing for everybody.

I hate to be the guy that only adds to the list of problems, but aren't kids just going to buy junk food someplace else if the cafeteria doesn't serve it? When I was a kid, our cafeteria at Springs school sucked, but Barnes would hook me up with a 50-cent bag of chips and a 50-cent carton of iced tea (Bonac Tonic). I even remember doing the math, 50 cents plus 50 cents equals a dollar, meaning a dollar was going to score me an extremely delicious snack. I think this was the first time I ever really focused on math in my life.

I guess things have changed.

You would think that hiring a lunch lady, ordering some milk, orange juice and cereal with apples, some peanut butter and jelly, some bread, some cheese and some ham and turkey wouldn't be that complicated, but the restaurant business is a lot harder then it sounds. This is one of the main reasons why businesses like Whitson's exist.

Somebody suggested going to the real experts -- the lunch ladies at the Ross School. Certainly a school like the Ross School, with such a great reputation for saving money anywhere they can by serving students sushi, whole fish and steaks prepared by world renowned chefs inside of a cafeteria that is now being rented out by Nobu, one of the most expensive restaurants in New York City, will know how to save money and solve this lunchroom problem at Pierson.Sag Harbor High School to Choose Between Junk Food and $$$