GREEN LAKE, Wis. – The Green Lake School District is the latest the join a number of schools reevaluating their participation in the National School Lunch Program.
“When I walk through the school cafeteria, I see multi-colored fruits and vegetables and whole-grain pasta or wraps on the trays of our students. The food looks really good, but the students aren’t eating it,” principal Mary Allen says, according to the paper.
“… The limited salt, whole-grains, vegetable substitutes for meat, and unfamiliar foods such as ‘quinoa’ and ‘jicama’ are not being embraced. Although the food looks good and is undeniably healthy, it is unflavored and tasteless.”
Students reportedly gave the school board a 31-page report produced in math class, which studied the question: “Will the Green Lake School District better serve its students without the National School Lunch Program?”
Green Lake isn’t alone.
The Windham and Salem school districts – both in New Hampshire – are also mulling opting out.
“It has been much more restrictive and prescriptive than in the past with the intention of serving healthy snacks and food,” Windham superintendent Winifried Feneberg says, according to the Eagle-Tribune.
Opting out would mean more flexibility and local decision-making, the superintendent tells the paper.
“We’re considering opting out because of the program rules and a decline in participation,” Salem finance director Deborah Payne says. “There’s not a lot of choice for students.”
Meanwhile, others aren’t quite to that point yet, despite growing alarm over the shrinking portion sizes.
The Bangor, Pennsylvania district has cut its chicken finger serving size from six to three.
“Going from six chicken fingers down to three of them is not what we should be doing,” school board member Kenneth Brewer tells 69 News.
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