• Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will impede Homecoming fund drive for high school scholarships
by Jim Boyle
Editor
College scholarships will be some of the newest victims of the calorie-shaving, sodium-lowering Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010.
Improving child nutrition is the focal point of the federal legislation that authorizes funding and sets policy for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s core child nutrition programs. It also speaks to the drinks and snacks available to students during the school day more than ever before.
Photo by Jim Boyle
Elk River High School students are eating healthier, but some say the federal and state government are going too far with its rules.
Effective July 1, 2014, the only snacks school districts may sell to students during the school day – including food and beverages sold in school stores, vending machines and through fundraisers – will be “smart snacks” that meet the USDA’s nutrition standards for calories, fats, sugar, sodium and caffeine content.
Sales at Elk River High School’s school store have been cut in half, according to DECA adviser Sonja Weiler.
Weiler said the DECA program is treating the changes as an opportunity to learn, and her students are working hard to figure out what product lines they should sell as food and beverage manufacturers wrestle with the changes, too.
This new wrinkle also applies to fundraisers put on during the school day, such as the two held during homecoming and Snow Week at Elk River High School. Twice a year the school’s student council organizes the royalty court in the participation of food or beverage sales to the student body. They collaborate with the local business community to sell things like slices of pie and other treats made by area businesses.
The royalty has been offering this fundraiser ever since 2004. The food service staff educates the royalty court to ensure homemade items do not enter the school and proper dispensing is adhered, Elk River High School Principal Terry Bizal said.
“Our regular lunch provider (Sodexo) still offers the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids lunch to any student during each of the lunch periods on these two dates,” Bizal said.
Bizal said he has filed for an exemption with the Minnesota Department of Education, which has that authority from the federal government. But as of Wednesday morning, Bizal had not heard back.
The clock is ticking on the homecoming fundraiser that’s slated for Sept. 17. A similar operation will be carried out one day in February during Snow Week, if approved. Each have generated about $3,500 annually.
Bizal said the high school has parlayed the money from those two fundraisers into 14 $500 scholarships annually.
“I can’t make that up,” Bizal said.
The scholarships are distributed to the upper (four), middle (five) and lower (five) thirds of the senior class.
“This nominal, but much-appreciated, amount helps fulfill dreams as recipients pursue postsecondary educational training,” Bizal said.
Smart snack rules have also put school lunch programs in a pinch to fill their a la carte shelves at area high schools.
So few items qualify under the new guidelines that manufacturing plants are struggling to keep up with the demand for the “popular” healthy snacks, according to Julee Miller, the manager of food service that the school district contracts with to provide school lunches.
Miller said the school district and her company, Sodexo, have been able to keep up with most of the changes coming down from the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, because they have been keeping ahead of the changes by using healthier ingredients like whole wheat before they have been mandated.
“The schools have been supportive of the changes and the kids are knowledgeable about nutrition,” she said, noting their willingness to eat healthier options as well as fruits and vegetables.
Photo by Jim Boyle
Candy has been removed from the School Store at Elk River High School.
Makers of snacks have been stymied trying to keep up as they work to create appealing products for their consumers.
Miller said manufacturers of baked chips, reduced fat chips and other healthful snacks can’t keep up, but she predicts they eventually will.
She said she’s most concerned about are the sodium restrictions coming down the line in 2016 or 2017.
“The foods that will be needed don’t exist,” she said.
School store adjusts
DECA students, who have removed candy from their store’s shelves, have found some of their most popular sellers, like Arizona brand beverages, have to be sold in smaller cans to qualify.
They also had to change the base of their Slush Puppies from sugar to fruit juice. Whether it sells as well will remain to be seen, Weiler said.
Weiler, who serves on the National Advisory Board for DECA, said chief among her concerns are the impacts the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 will have on curricular programs like food occupations.
“That was a huge topic at our last conference,” she said.
There’s a piece of legislation that has surfaced called the Joe Act that the advisory board is supporting. It was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in May. It would amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to exempt school-based enterprises that are managed as part of a school’s curriculum from the nutrition standards for foods sold in schools that are not foods provided under the school lunch and breakfast programs.
Bizal and Weiler said they understand the need to provide nutritious lunches, but they question the overall impact of the legislation on educational programs. The loss of scholarships remains the most pressing concern.
The federal government is giving states wide-ranging authority to grant or deny exemptions. Time will tell how the Minnesota Department of Education uses its authority.