Child Nutrition Update - June 2020

June is ....

5 Year Review Cycle

Dairy Month

Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month

Papaya Month

Turkey Lover’s Month

National Egg Day – June 3

National Cheese Day – June 4

Herbs and Spices Day – June 10

Corn on the Cob Day – June 11

Fresh Veggies Day – June 16

International Picnic Day – June 18

PLE Tool Available

A reminder that the Paid Lunch Equity tool for the 2020-2021 school year is available. In this tool, the school will compare the average price received for PAID lunches against the amount of federal reimbursement received for each free meal (2019-20: $3.08) Schools are not required to increase student paid meal price by more than $.10. The PLE tool or the exemption request is required documentation for an administrative review.

Meal Pricing information for student and adult meals is available on our website.

Excess Funds Balance

Reminder to Business managers to calculate ‘Excess Funds’ for School Food service account at the end of the year.

The financial information reported to the Department of Public Instruction is passed on to the Child Nutrition and Food Distribution department and used to do the mandatory calculation for excess funds remaining in a schools food service account. The School Food service account is categorized as Non-Profit. Federal rules concerning any non-profit organization deem that the fund balance cannot carry more than enough funds to cover 3 months of expense. All school food service revenues must be accounted for in the 05 Food service fund. Only expenses reported in the 05 fund are used in the State’s calculation for excess funds.

Calculations: (05 Fund Expenses / 3) compared to (05 Fund Revenues)  The Revenue number must be equal or bigger than the expenses otherwise there are excess funds in the school food service account.

What’s Ahead for the New Year?

No one can say for certain what will happen when the regular school year begins in August. However for your own sanity, it is best to do some planning now. Following are guidance, planning tools and resources to consider. These are suggested best practices only. You know your own food service and what will work best in that situation.

Introducing Kellen Leier

I am Kellen Leier and I am starting with DPI as a Child Nutrition Specialist. I graduated from the University of North Dakota with a Bachelor of Business Administration. Before coming to DPI, I was a Sales Specialist with Coca-Cola where I worked with accounts to educate retailers how to grow their business. I was the Produce Manager at Cash Wise for 5 years prior to that. I have also been a volunteer hunter's safety instructor for the North Dakota Game and Fish for the past 10 years. I am married to Deanne and have two children: Cayden and Jett. In my free time I enjoy being active outdoors and spending time on the lakes in Minnesota. I am excited to be a part of Team North Dakota and I look forward to meeting everyone.

Professional Development Opportunities

Get a start on next year’s Professional development hours while relaxing on the lake or sipping lemonade on the deck. There are many ideas to keep your skills as a school nutrition professional updated and growing. All are available through a computer and many can be used over your cell phone.

The USDA professional development database will help you narrow down the trainings that interest you – choosing from nutrition, operations, administration or communication/marketing.

Find this resource at https://professionalstandards.fns.usda.gov/ Click on one of the icons representing the four areas of training and then filter further on the left side of page to say whether you want read or watch, how long and the very last filter is “free or paid”.

If you can’t find anything there, here are some other suggestions:

NDSU Extension is a great resource for school nutrition. Julie Gardener-Robinson authors a newsletter about called Nourish and Exercise your Body. Sign up at: https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/extension/food

You can count any newsletter on nutrition for ½ hour unless it is really long, just keep a copy of the newsletter for your documentation.

State and National Commodity boards/councils have great resources to learn from:

North Dakota is the top producer of honey: https://www.honey.com/faq - I could spend a good hour reading through the honey fact sheets, signing up for the newsletter, perusing the recipes and checking out the rest of the website.

Which commodity are you interested in? check out some of our major ones (wheat, barley, corn, soybeans, etc) listed at the Northern Crops Institute https://www.northern-crops.com/commodity-organizations

The national Ag in The Classroom annual meeting was moved to a virtual expo now. Attached is the agenda. If any of those sessions sound interesting, you could register and watch them at the end of June. https://app.etapestry.com/onlineforms/NationalAgricultureintheClass/VirtualAgLitSummit.html

There are many trainings on the Institute of Child Nutrition website. They are holding several virtual trainings in June and July – Nutrition 101 and Basic Culinary Math might interest you – both go from 2 to 6 p.m. and have a live instructor plus live technical support during the entire 4 hours. Go to: https://theicn.org/vilt/

Other self-led trainings on ICN include Culinary Techniques, Food Allergies for School Nutrition Directors, Financial Management for Managers, and Inventory Management. Find those at: https://theicn.org/school-nutrition-programs/

Other websites with resources to use as for training hours:

No Kid Hungry – COVID-19 is at the forefront of this website, but if you look at later material, it has resources on Breakfast and After school meals https://bestpractices.nokidhungry.org/resource-center

Action for Healthier Generation – Great resources on Local Wellness policies https://www.healthiergeneration.org/app/resources

The American Egg Board is offering two culinary cooking courses free through December 2020. Go to www.aeb.org Or  Egg-focused curriculum

Finally, there are resources to look through on our website: https://www.nd.gov/dpi/districtsschools/child-nutrition-and-food-distribution/school-nutrition-program

A great reference for you under Policies/Manuals/Guidance is the “Administrative Manual for Food Service” or the shorter version “Survival Guide for New Administrators”. Note how many hours you spend reading through the manual on your professional development log.

American Egg Board

ICN’s Virtual Instructor Led Trainings

SNA Stonger Together

National Ag in the Classroom Virtual Summit

Non Discrimination Statement

In accordance with Federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, the USDA, its Agencies, offices, and employees, and institutions participating in or administering USDA programs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA.

Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g. Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.), should contact the Agency (State or local) where they applied for benefits. Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech disabilities may contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. Additionally, program information may be made available in languages other than English.

To file a program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, (AD-3027) found online at: http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint_filing_cust.html , and at any USDA office, or write a letter addressed to USDA and provide in the letter all of the information requested in the form. To request a copy of the complaint form, call (866) 632-9992. Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by:

(1) Mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights

1400 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, D.C. 20250-9410;

(2) Fax: (202) 690-7442; or

(3) E-mail: program.intake@usda.gov.

This institution is an equal opportunity provider.