Education goes fat-free

MAT-SU -- A United States Department of Agriculture audit this spring revealed that the Mat-Su Borough School District failed to comply with some of the USDA's guidelines covering the nutritional value of school meals. While the actual lunches provided by the school district have been deemed adequate, problems have surfaced surrounding the vending foods and drinks that are made available to students during meal periods.

The school district were given a deadline of April 15 to comply with section 210 of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, which regulates the service of food made available in competition with government reimbursable meals served under programs such as the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. These regulations state that the sale of FMNV (foods of minimal nutritional value) must be regulated by state agencies and school food authorities. At the very minimum, the state must prohibit the sale of FMNV in food service areas during meal times.

Many of the schools in this district have FMNV available to students through the use of vending machines. The money made from these sales provide funding for individual school's programs. The district reported each middle school made approximately $400 a month off beverage vending items this year; high schools made more than $4,000 a month. Grade schools do not have vending machines available to students. Three out of the district's four middle schools already had their vending machines turned off during the day. Linda Stoll, the district's supervisor of nutritional services, said that although the district failed to comply by the April 15 deadline, steps are being taken to ensure that FMNV are not available during breakfast and lunch periods next fall.

Stoll said the district is looking at ways to stop selling FMNV during meal periods while avoiding cutting the school's opportunity to sell vending items which produce money to fund school's programs. She also said three of the district's four middle schools already had their vending machines turned off during the day. Middle and high schools have between three and 12 vending machines located in the school.

"I've been asked to study this and have come up with two practical solutions that I presented to the board at the last meeting," Stoll said. "We could relocate the vending machines outside the lunchroom areas or put them on a timer. Both of these are practical solutions."

Stoll is also looking into providing more nutritional items in vending machines.

"Machines that offered healthy stuff like milk and juice would not be out of compliance," Stoll said. "We are researching a number of alternatives."

While the USDA suggests that state agencies cancel meal reimbursement funding if a district fails to comply with regulations, Stoll said she has not heard of any plans to cancel reimbursement due to this spring's non-compliance.

"We were not told there would be any action taken this year," she said. "I do not believe that we are at risk for losing last year's reimbursement."

Although the school board has not made a final decision on how to fix the FMNV problem, Stoll said she is confident that when school beings this fall, the district will have found and implemented a solution that nutritionally benefits student's food intake without taking away vending-machine-made funds from the schools.