What has happend to school lunch?

This past week I got really mad when the kids came home from school and said they had chicken nuggets and ranch dressing for breakfast! Does anyone else see anything wrong with that picture?? I called the school and talked to them about it, and they then referred me to the school lunch administrator. I could go into it and tell you the whole story, but I'll let the e-mail speak for itself.

This message is for Jeanine Warren. I was appalled yesterday when my son and daughter came home from school and told me they had chicken nuggets and ranch dressing--FOR BREAKFAST!! How is that okay? It's not even a breakfast item. Did you order too many for lunch and decide to pawn them off on the kids for breakfast so they didn't go to waste? I just think it is ludicrous. I called Book Cliff Elementary to complain to them and get a breakfast menu and they referred me to you saying they have no control over the menu, that you set it, order the food, etc. The school did give a quick run down of what items were on the breakfast menu, and I was even more appalled to find out that the kids are eating Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, "Breakfast" Pizza--which you are only calling that because of the sausage on it--there is nothing breakfast about tomato sauce, cheese and sausage--and Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches. I am sure you feel you can get away with the last one because of the Ham part. I know most of the food you serve our children is processed and heated up out of a wrapper or can. Whatever happened to cooking healthy school lunch? I'm very disappointed with the meals our children are given for school lunch/breakfast. If something doesn't change, I'm not sure our family will continue to support the school lunch/breakfast programs, which is sad because we qualify for free lunch.


So I sent that off and waited for a reply. After five days, this was the response I got...

Allisha,
We do our best to give our students the highest quality and variety available to us. We feed over 500 breakfast and 1500 lunches in our 10 schools. A school year contains 179 breakfast meals and 173 lunches. In order to keep meals from being boring, we do try a few other items at breakfast, and have done so since we began breakfast back in 1990. We also have breakfast for lunch. These items are not served but a few times a year. Ranch dressing is not on the breakfast menu with the chicken nuggets, so students must have asked the kitchen staff for it and that is how it got put out.
We do use some items that are pre-prepared, we can use commodities to get "Uncrustables" a very popular peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Also we can use commodity cheese to get our grilled cheese sandwiches made, they are pre-packaged and an excellent product. We do a lot of scratch cooking also, we have things like, homemade chicken noodle soup, taco soup, fry bread tacos, spaghetti, chicken alfredo on noodles, sloppy joes. Weekly we serve mashed potatoes with items like chicken fried steak-pork roast-turkey roast-ham-prk fried steaks-oven fried chicken. We also give the students things that they like and are use to eating such as, popcorn chicken, hotdogs, corn dogs, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, super nachos, burritos, tacos, deli sandwiches. To speed the serving line the ladies pre-boat or what looks like packaging, we serve very little prepackaged items. I am sorry that you feel like your students arent' getting a good meal, every meal is analyzed to meet the state and federal requirements for healty meals. We would appreciate it if your students could continuing participating in our meal service, we do try to make all students happy but when you feed 180 students a day as your schools do it is hard to please everyone every day. I hope this helps clear up a few of your misconceptions aobut school meal programs. Thank you for the opportunity to communicate with you. Please feel free to call 435-687-9846 or email warrenj@emeryschools.org anytime, I am sorry the school didn't answer your questions, the schools food service manager does have input into the menus and she does change thing to what the majority of her students like best. I have attached menus for April and May breakfast and lunch hope you find this helpful.
Keep smiling,
Jeneane Warren
Emery School District

I think it is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors! She is placing blame where it shouldn't be and taking no responsibility about the issue. I have talked to our lunch lady quite a bit, and I know she is frustrated with all the prepackaged items they feed our children. She is our only lunch lady and cooks for both the elementary and the high school, and has little or no help. The school's computer aid goes in and helps her serve the meals because she feels bad she's doing everything alone.

I don't think she really replied to my original question of "How is chicken nuggets okay for breakfast--ranch aside!" Menu items like this are served only a few times a year??? Then why is it on the menu AGAIN for next week?!?!?! The kids didn't complain about eating it--they weren't unhappy-- I'm complaining as a parent! I DON'T FEEL IT IS OKAY! I've talked to other parents in the school, and they were just as shocked as I was when their kids said they had chicken nuggets for breakfast. They said they thought their kids were kidding. I told them to call or write the district, but I don't think any of them did. I can't change the world by myself, so I guess if they won't complain with me, this is where this argument ends.