The School Nutrition Association turned up the heat on Congress today, urging lawmakers to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act despite the logjam of legislation on their desks.
Still, the SNA did not recommend a rubber-stamping of the old law. The association of school foodservice professionals wants Congress to provide greater funding and flexibility to participating schools. School foodservice professionals want more leeway on such matters as whole grain, sodium and a la carte requirements, and are requesting that schools be able to decide whether students should have to take one of the fruits and vegetables offered with every meal.
The SNA also wants a 35-cent increase in the federal reimbursement for school meals.
“To sustain the progress we have achieved for students, Congress must maintain strong federal nutrition standards while providing more funding and options for school meal planners to appeal to diverse student tastes,” said Jean Ronnei, president of the School Nutrition Association.
A recent SNA study found that although the national standards have resulted in many positive changes, meeting the mandates harmed the financial health of nearly 70 percent of school-meal programs surveyed and benefited fewer than 3 percent.
Findings indicated that 80 percent of school districts have taken steps to offset financial losses, including enacting hundreds of layoffs and reducing hours for foodservice staff due to the updated standards.
In 2015 alone, schools must absorb $1.2 billion in added costs as a result of the standards, according to the USDA. When asked to identify the factors that have harmed their program’s financial health, “increased per meal food costs” led the list by a wide margin, cited by 70 percent of SNA respondents.
“We are all committed to providing healthy meals for students, which is why SNA is asking Congress to address the unintended consequences of the rules,” said Ronnei in a statement.
Recently, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, speaking at the Center for American Progress in Washington, said that the nation has to see “nutrition in the same way that we see so many other issues,” like the economy, national security and healthcare, because it is just as important.
This is an important opportunity for the country to reinforce the good work that was done in 2010 [with the passage of the Act], to expand on it, to solidify it, to institutionalize it, and to strengthen it,” Vilsack said.