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Feeding the students at Albuquerque Public Schools is a major operation

By Maggie Ybarra
Saturday, August 11, 2007

The feeding frenzy begins Tuesday.

Five days a week, excited, antsy, hungry children will swarm like half-starved piranhas around the tender chicken nuggets and moist cinnamon rolls available in the cafeteria of Mountain View Elementary school.

Francis Aguilar, cafeteria manager at Mountain View Elementary School and an Albuquerque Public Schools employee for 25 years, anticipates serving 400 kids a day during the fall semester - but she wants every meal to look good.

"Their tray has to look very beautiful," Aguilar said. "Everybody eats with their eyes."

Feeding an army of children is no easy task for Aguilar - who has switched over the years from preparing most of the meals to ordering prepackaged items - or the 600 employees of APS Food and Services.

Mary Swift, food services supervisor for APS, said the district provides breakfast for more than 13,000 students a day, makes 45,000 lunches and prepares 3,500 after-school snacks.

"With this size of operation there are many challenges, from equipment and computers malfunctioning to food not being delivered to the correct warehouse," Swift said.

At Mountain View Elementary, Aguilar prepares all her meals based on an APS-approved menu.

"We get a menu, and from the menu I do all the ordering I need," Aguilar said. "But I do have the option of changing it. If the kids don't like something, we throw that recipe out and give them something they really like."

Swift said that although cafeteria managers have a say on what kind of food works best for the kids in their school, the menu must meet specific nutrition requirements.

"Writing the menu to both meet nutrition requirements and offer foods students like and will eat is always a challenge," Swift said.

APS school menus must provide a quarter of the recommended dietary allowances at breakfast and a third of the recommended dietary allowances at lunch for calories, protein, vitamin C, vitamin A, iron and calcium. In addition, there cannot be more than 30 percent of the total calories from fat or 10 percent of the calories from saturated fat.

Swift said APS mandates a specific amount of meat or meat alternative, bread and grains, fruits and vegetables and, of course, milk, be offered daily.

"The look of school lunch was very different in 1946, as there was not a childhood obesity problem and the main purpose was to provide food to students," Swift said. "Over the years, the face of school lunches has changed considerably. There are many more requirements now, and the type of food has changed from homemade meatloaf and apple cobbler to reduced-fat chicken nuggets and fresh apples."

At Mountain View Elementary, one thing hasn't changed much in years: Kids' favorite lunch day is Pizza Friday.

"Pizza is their favorite," Aguilar said. "If we don't have it, they look at us and say, `Where's our pizza?' "

Swift said this year students can expect new breakfast items such as strawberry-banana French toast.

They can also expect a price hike on their meal plans.

"Meal prices at APS have not changed for 10 years," Swift said. "But due to the increased cost of food and transportation and employee costs there has been a modest increase for the 2007-08 school year."

Breakfast will now cost $1, which is 25 cents more than last year. Lunch will cost $1.60 for kindergarten through grade five and $1.75 for grade six through grade 12, up 20 cents from what it previously cost.

Those on the reduced plan can expect the cost of breakfast to rise from 25 cents to 30 cents, but lunch will remain the same at 40 cents.

Another change to the 2007-08 APS menu involves altering the method of pay for the benefit of students' parents.

Parents will soon be able to purchase school meals online at mylunchmoney.com.

Change, whether good or bad, is constant. But for the children at Mountain View Elementary, one thing is guaranteed to remain the same.

The cafeteria lunch lady.

"I've been here at this school for 15 years," Aguilar said. "Principals have come and gone, teachers leave, but I just stay. This is where I want to retire."