It’s become nearly a cliche for young students to complain about school cafeteria fare being inedible or, at the very least, unpalatable.
The truth is, schools in Hawaii, and elsewhere across the country have found ways to improve the operations and win over more of the young clientele.
Hawaii schools, too, could do much better by the kids, delivering meals more of their families want to buy.
The pathway toward achieving this is not simply by compelling them to shell out more money, however.
State Department of Education officials who are trying to cope with declining revenues surely will find that raising school lunch prices, as they have proposed, might actually drive more families away from participating in and funding the program.
That’s why the state Board of Education was correct to postpone any move to increase meal prices until after more exploration of alternatives — principally ways to reduce the expenses side of the ledger.
What’s proposed is raising prices by about 30 percent over the next three years; for high schoolers, the lunch that now sells for $2.50 would cost $3.25 by the 2017-2018 school year. Elementary school student lunches would go from $2.25 to $3; breakfasts would rise by 10 cents each year.
A big part of the financial picture is the fact that 60 percent of the families in the program are subsidized or fully covered by the federal government, which pays in a set amount per meal.
This aid is based on financial need: Families of four can earn no more than $35,659 to qualify for free lunches; reduced-rate lunches are provided to families of four earning up to $50,746.
An adjustment in that subsidy criteria or amount could be pursued.
But that’s an insufficient remedy. The real solution, as board members observed, lies in patching the leaks in what appears to be a highly inefficient school-lunch system.
A DOE report, issued in January 2013, gave the program an "unacceptable" rating, citing its lack of oversight, monitoring and accountability of purchases.
Many things that should be automated are done manually, according to the audit, which pointed to schools taking inventory on index cards.
The audit identified myriad problems. For starters, staffing is based on meal counts recorded in September each year, a system that likely is being manipulated.
The September counts were boosted, largely with adult meals, according to the report: The rest of the year, the daily tally of meals sold to adults was 2,220 statewide, while during September, that count rose to 3,950.
Further, purchasing and collection procedures weren’t always followed and forms were used and retained on file inconsistently, the report stated, adding that this opens the DOE to overspending, waste and other problems.
In deferring action until the March committee meeting, Brian De Lima, the school board’s finance chairman, proposed that the department consider an outside review of ways to reduce costs. As precedent, he cited the DOE-commissioned study that recommended reforms to cut costs in the school bus program.
That did ultimately produce savings, but the existing audit already lays out good suggestions that the department is still working to implement. DOE officials should accelerate efforts to follow that report’s recommendations, to begin the reform process.
Finally, Waipahu High School has demonstrated already that school lunch menus can be adapted to make them more appealing and, ultimately, increase sales. The school surveyed students to find out what they like.
There should be room within federal nutritional guidelines to make changes. And there’s no better people to ask for ideas than the students. They — and their families — are the consumers.
