A Look Inside Feeding Students Meals at School Upon Return
Lauren Weyand, Director of School Nutrition
For most families, the unknown surrounding the safety of their student(s) upon returning to in person learning can be daunting including how school meals. The School Nutrition Department at Craven County Schools have been working diligently to create a plan that aligns with the district’s safety measures to ensure that our students are safe even during meal service times.
Our goal is to continue to provide safe nutritious meals to our students while they are attending in-person learning and also while they continue learning virtually. While students are in school they will be served mainly a hot breakfast and a hot lunch daily. Breakfast items will consist of menu options that includes; chicken biscuit, breakfast pizza, egg with sliced ham and cheese on a croissant bun, toast with scrambled eggs and yogurt parfaits. Unlike breakfast, students will have a choice between 2 options for lunch. One option will be the hot home plate and the other will resemble a grab and go sub sandwich or hot sandwich type meal. All meals will be served in unitized format as a safety measure. Another safety measure included to facilitate safety while eating is that meals will be eaten in the child’s classroom where they will be socially distanced from their peers.
Apart from feeding our students while they are in school, we have derived a way to provide for them while they are learning at home or at community hub sites. All students will receive meal kits to take home on their last day of in-person learning for the number of days they will be learning at home during the school week. Meal kits will consist of a breakfast and lunch entrée with the required sides and a milk for the total number of days for virtual learning. These meals will be sent home frozen with storage and reheating instructions. However, families that do not wish to have the meal kits can opt out of the meal kits by declining these meals on a form that will be made available to them by their child’s individual school. Additionally, families that opt out of meal kits will be given a placard which allows them to still participate in meals daily via the schools’ drive through pick up meal sites. These drive through pick up sites will continue to remain open daily between 11:00am – 1:00pm. Students enrolled in Craven LIVE (all virtual learning), will also be able to pick up meals daily via the drive through pick up locations.
Many of the community hub sites that have been available to our students since the start of school year will continue to operate to support our students’ learning. Families that plan to continue to use hub sites on the days’ students are not doing in-person learning, can also opt out of meal kits. The community hub sites will provide a roster of students attending these sites for our process to be verified for accuracy.
Despite which method families choose for us to serve their child(ren), we hope that you will not be concerned about the safety of your child while they eat with us.