Maury County Public Schools is navigating ongoing pandemic-related issues in the district’s food service department.
Superintendent Michael Hickman explains the school district has been actively working to ensure students are provided with full balanced meals despite several obstacles facing the region’s suppliers.
“There are times when we can’t get chicken,” Hickman said. “That is a problem across the state and the nation.”
Aware that it might be difficult to obtain certain foods this academic year, Hickman said the school district’s nutrition staff began scheduling orders months in advance in an effort to ensure stability across the district’s more than 12,000 students across 20 campuses.
Hickman said the district has had to make some changes to menus because of the ongoing issue in recent weeks, emphasizing that campuses have not had to rely on repeatedly feeding pupils peanut better and jelly sandwiches or taking other extreme measures.
More: Hot dog tortillas and bagged salads: School lunches take on new look amid supply-chain woes
“We have been very fortunate because we took this very seriously back in August when we were told that we should order now,” Hickman said. “We are tying to get out from under this as quickly as possible.”
School cafeteria managers across the nation are scrambling to provide students with nutritious meals due to the ongoing supply-chain crunch, making some food supplies hard to obtain.
In nearby Clarksville, The Leaf Chronicle reports students have received hamburgers and hot dogs with no buns. Instead, they were served tortillas, flatbreads and wraps, even crackers.
More: Clarksville-Montgomery County School System combats food supply chain issues
Hickman said schools are also a relatively low priority for suppliers because there is more money to be made selling to privately-owned stores and restaurants.
He said that supplies can only sell their products to public schools and other private entities under a pre-negotiated price.
“We get caught up in that, and they are not ashamed to say so,” Hickman said.
MCPS participates in the Offer vs. Serve Program for all grade levels. A USDA program, the initiative allows students to choose what they would like to eat.
The meals are broken down into components — such as protein, fruit and carbohydrate — and the students are required to take a certain number of components to have the meal qualify as a lunch or breakfast.
MCPS is currently offering all students meals at no additional cost to households.
“I know that it does not make you feel any better,” Hickman said. “But at least, we can tell you the why about what is going on.”
Reach Mike Christen at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeChristenCDH and on Instagram at @michaelmarco. Please consider supporting his work and that of other Daily Herald journalists by subscribing to the publication.
