By Patrick Adrian
[email protected]
SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — The Springfield School District is seeking feedback from students, parents and educators to align the district’s cafeteria services to the community’s needs and increase student use.
The district is sending emails to families and staff with links to an online food services priorities and values survey, which will help the district determine what the school community values most when making breakfast and lunch choices during the school week.
At the school board meeting Wednesday, the district’s Director of Fiscal Services Richard Pembroke told board members that the overall student participation rate in the district’s cafeteria services is “woefully low.”
“Overall as a district we are somewhere in the high 30 or low 40 [percentage],” Pembroke said. “We should be — at minimum — at a 60 percent participation rate.”
The district is currently developing a new Request for Proposal (RFP) for cafeteria contract services. Pembroke told the Eagle Times yesterday that districts are required every five years to bid for cafeteria services. Federal law requires this process even if a district intends to retain the same food services vendor.
The survey results will inform the district on what priorities and criteria to emphasize in the new RFP, according to Pembroke. For example, the survey feedback might indicate a community priority of serving locally-grown foods, or feedback might say that cafeteria lines need to move faster so students have more time to eat.
The district defines in its RFP what it wants its food services to look like, including the number of line cooks or cashiers.
“We want as much feedback as possible from these survey responses to drive our development of the RFP,” Pembroke told the board. “Because that is one of the few opportunities we have to shape what our food service looks like.”
The district aims to send out emails with link on Thursday, but no later than today, according to Superintendent Zach McLaughlin. The district wants to receive survey responses by Dec. 5.
Survey responders do not need to provide their name, but the district does ask responders to identify their relationship to the school — whether a student, parent, faculty staff or school board member.
“I don’t know if we’ll get a drastic difference in responses based on the type of individual,” Pembroke said. “But it’s important to see if there are drastic differences.”
A draft of the survey shared on Wednesday included 38 questions, most of those formatted as multiple-choice, with five to seven questions soliciting written feedback. The questions seek opinions regarding individual satisfaction with services, what the person prioritizes or values most and recommendations to change or prove the program’s offerings or operations.
According to data compiled by Laurie Colgan, a food-services consultant, approximately 53% of Elm Hill students enrolled in grades K-2 use cafeteria lunch services this year. Moreover, 50% of Union Street students enrolled in grades 3-5, 45% of Riverside Middle School students enrolled in grades 6-8 and 26% of Springfield High School students enrolled in grades 9-12.
About 41% of Elm Hill students participate in the breakfast program, while the other three schools post a student participation rate between 19-20%.
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