Congressman meets to discuss new school lunch guidelines

After Congressman Frank Lucas’ Town Hall meeting Wednesday afternoon he met with a small group of child nutrition representatives. According to the Ponca City School Board they discussed recent changes in the national school lunch and breakfast program.

The new changes began in July of 2012, under the direction of the U.S.. Department of Agriculture. The changes have been gradually implemented over the past few years and most are in effect as of July 2014.

Director of child nutrition programs for Ponca City schools, Jeff Denton led the meeting. Also in attendance were several child nutrition directors from Lucas’ district and local Ponca City Schools staff members, including Dr. David Pennington, Mary Ladd, Liz Glaser, Assistant CNP Director, Linda Turner, Senior High Camus Mart Manager and Stephanie Grose, East Campus Mart Manager.

Denton began the meeting by saying that we all want to serve healthy, nutritionally sound meals to our students.

"This is where cause met reality," Denton said about the Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. " We have never been against serving more fruits and vegetable and limiting an over-abundance of sodium in the foods we served. What has been the issue is the lack of research, testing, piloting and consideration made prior to the implementation of the new regulations. This is where a good cause met a real reality on the serving line."

Lucas was able to observe several trays of typical school lunches. The purpose was to difficult the amount of fruit and vegetables offered to students and the possible waste and added expense because of the required servings.

Not only is it difficult for students to physically consume a cup of fruit and 3/4 cups of vegetable in one meal, it is very unlikely they will be able to do in the allocated time schedule for lunch," Denton said.

Several dieticians were in attendance to discuss the required sodium targets for this year and gradual implementation for the upcoming years. Denton held up a turkey and cheese sandwich and remarked that the sandwich alone almost exceeds the current sodium level for and entire meal. Kristen Miller from the State Department of Education claimed the upcoming sodium targets are more stringent than renal patients in hospitals.

The final discussion dealt with the new SMART SNACK regulations dealing with all foods available to students on campus.

" I can understand the USDA setting requirements for meals they reimburse, but I am baffled with their involvement on the local level where there is no Federal Funding by the USDA," Superintendent, Dr. Pennington said. "We should leave it to the local school board to set the foods available on campus policy. As the president of the national AASA this year, our organization has been working to support waiver language that would allow the USDA Secretary to establish a process by which state can grant temporary waivers of compliance to the nation nutritional standards, so long as the waivers are neither conditional nor limited in availability."