By Patrick Adrian
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CLAREMONT — While uncollected lunch debt remains an elusive problem, Claremont Finance Officer Richard Seaman said he wants to study other major cost-drivers in cafeteria services such as student underuse and food waste.
“We are seeing a significant drop off of breakfast being eaten in our buildings,” Seaman told the Claremont School Board Wednesday night. “And a lot of that, I think, are unintended consequences of decisions that we have made in each of our buildings.”
Seaman said that he is gathering information, including through historical records and conversations with other school districts, in order to “build a real financial model” based on the district’s actual cafeteria usage and realistic expectations and goals.
Public attention has mostly honed on the debt that results from unpaid lunch bills, which Seaman reiterated is a problem in districts nationwide. Claremont accumulates an average of $3,000 per month in debt from unpaid bills from families. Many districts try to accept such debt as a given, since the problem results from federal laws, and try to offset the loss through the revenues from cafeteria sales.
One reason why Claremont students aren’t eating breakfast is due to district policies, Seaman said.
At Stevens High School, for example, breakfast participation dropped when the district created a policy banning the school’s ability to offer caffeine to students.
“Not serving coffee,” Seaman explained. “So a lot of our kids are getting their coffee elsewhere, bringing it to school and sitting in a classroom with it. So there’s not a lot of incentive for them to go get breakfast at the same time.”
Stevens Senior Tyler Sullivan recalled a fear years ago when the Drama Club used to sell coffee in the morning, which would do a lot of business.
Seaman said the coffee policy is an example of the kind of revisitations the district should have in creating a new financial model.
“When you walk around the school in the morning, you’ll look in the classrooms and see the students with their coffees,” he said. “It’s not that the kids aren’t getting caffeinated drinks. They’re just not getting them from us.”
Another problem is the many rules and restrictions that require students to take additional beverages or side items that they don’t want with their meal.
Sullivan said that some high school students simply want to get a sandwich but are then required to take a milk or piece of fruit, which typically end up in the trash.
Federal regulations prohibit unwanted food from being taken from the school for reuse, whether for compost or donations. The intent was to prevent people from trying to make a profit from the food, but when combining this rule that requires cafeteria meals to include certain items, such as a fruit or vegetable, these regulations result in untouched food going into dumpsters.
School board member Heather Whitney said that the national outcry over food waste has prompted some federal legislators to review some of these restrictions.
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