Archive: Around Town

Gas prices aren't the only prices that are going up this year.  Lansing school officials say that their cafeteria meal prices will also go up in September.  "We are very concerned about our families knowing that there is an increase so that they can be prepared for that," says Superintendent Stephen Grimm.  "I don't want it to be a surprise.  Even though there's an economic condition such that people won't be surprised after the fact, they need to be prepared for it now."

Meals are going up by about a quarter per meal, which Grimm says translates to $45 per child per year.  Rising food prices aren't the only factor responsible for the rise.  "Contractually wages go up for the employees, and the food service program is designed to be self-sustaining," explains Business Administrator Mary June King.  "Part of the pressure on (Food Service Director) Cindy Easton is to make sure that she's keeping everything in a good financial place.  She did a lot of research on increasing the prices.  She looked at other similar area schools and found that the prices here at Lansing were quite a bit lower than most of the other school districts."

Lunch in the high and middle schools will be $2.00, on a par with the Dryden school district.  Ithaca and Trumansburg charge $2.25 for lunch, while Newfield and Groton set their price at $1.50.  In the elementary schools Lansing and Dryden charge $1.75 as compared with Ithaca and Trumansburg's $2.00 and Newfield and Groton's $1.50.

Lansing also falls in a mid range for breakfasts.  The cost will be $1.30 in the high and middle schools, and $1.20 in the elementary school.  That compares to Ithaca and Trumansburg's $1.75 and $1.30, Groton's $1.15 and $1.00, and Dryden and Newfield's $1.00 and $1.00.

The 17% of Lansing families that fall below the state poverty line are eligible for free or reduced priced meals.  Eligibility is based on a number of factors including household income and the number of children in the family.  Grimm says that families who are eligible and sign up for the reduced prices are actually doing the school district a favor.  "Signing up not only helps themselves, but it helps the school district because when they do purchase a lunch and it's free or reduced that comes as a credit," he says.  "We can apply that credit to the federal government and we get reimbursed for that lunch.  We actually get more money coming back to us."

Grimm and King say that the process is confidential so families who are embarrassed to sign up or need help filling out the paperwork shouldn't be.  Details of eligibility are mailed each year with the district calendar at the beginning of the school year.

The food services department is already using the Internet to post the menu for each month.  You choose 'Calendars' from the Activities menu, then click 'Lunch Menus.'  This year they will be adding the Nutrikids system as an option for paying for school meals.  The secure, confidential Web-based system allows you to deposit money in your child's account via the Internet using a credit or debit card, or even PayPal.  Each deposit, no matter the size, carries a $0.75 fee that pays for the service so that there is no charge to the school system. 

Parents concerned about their children's nutrition can use the system to see what meals their kids have purchase in a 30 day period.  "If people don't want to use it they can still write a check and send it in," Grimm says.  "But if people want to take advantage of that it's another feature that's going to change for us."

King says that Easton, a licensed dietician, provides nutritional meals that meet state requirements at a low price.  "Sometimes people will look at a certain meal and think that it's carb-heavy," she says.  "For people our age it might be carb-heavy, but for young people growing up -- and I want to stress that for some students this might be the closest thing to a square meal they get or the only food they get in the course of the day -- the state is very strict on fat and carbohydrate content, sodium, sugar, and all of those things.  I think she does a great job of keeping it in a healthy range and promoting the healthier choices, and keeping them where the state wants them to be."

She also says that kids today are more prone to make nutritional choices.  "I was amazed in the last ten or fifteen years watching high school students go for the salad bar and not going for the more dense foods," she says.  "It's interesting -- in a lot of cases many kids are making better choices as they get older."

While school systems around the country struggle with the balance of meals that are good for kids versus meals that kids will want to buy, food services worry that they won't make enough sales to pay for their expenses.  Grimm says that the mix of nutitional and fun foods in Lansing is working.  "Based on the numbers there is no need to make a change in what they are offering to attract more kids," he says.  "The kids will decide what to eat or not eat depending on what they see."

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