Student Nutrition Presentation
Staffing:
- Los Lunas Student Nutrition currently employs approximately 65 people.
- Three people work in the office full time and we also employ a part-time dietitian. Alexia Quintana, Diane Jolly, and I work in the office handling the daily routines of the department. Mary Swift works part-time and she specializes in diet orders, nutri-slice, and nutritionals.
- Our warehouse consists of four people. Keisha Bock, Harley Flowers, Manny Ortiz, and Eric Pedro work together to ensure that all of our kitchens receive their orders and that all of the regulations are followed for safe food practices.
- We have 15 kitchens. Each kitchen has a manager. Some of the kitchens have assistant managers. All of the kitchens also have cook helpers who cook, clean, and serve nutritional meals to our students. Our people serve more than food, they also hand out some extra love and attention to the kids.
COVID & Student Nutrition:
- The Student Nutrition Department was affected by COVID in several ways. Meals served and the supply chain disruption were only a couple.
- When COVID started, everyone was asked to stay home but we still had to feed the children. Our department worked hard to ensure that the children who came for the meals had them.
- When school resumed during COVID, the government decided to feed all of the students for free using the Seamless Summer Option. This was an amazing time for our departments. We fed a ton of students and there were no rules regarding income levels. This led us to take a new approach in feeding our students. I spoke with the leaders in the district and I told them the vision I had for Student Nutrition. I believed that CEP was the best choice for our students and they all agreed!
Student Nutrition Program:
- The Student Nutrition is a federally funded program. The USDA provides funding for each meal that our department provides. There are different programs that schools can opt into in order to get reimbursements. Los Lunas Student Nutrition is utilizing the Community Eligibility Provision.
- The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a non-pricing meal service option for schools and school districts in low-income areas. CEP allows the nation’s highest poverty schools and districts to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications. Instead, schools that adopt CEP are reimbursed using a formula based on the percentage of students categorically eligible for free meals based on their participation in other specific means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
- In order to qualify for CEP, the schools must meet a minimum Identified Student Percentage of 40%. In other words, a qualifying school has at least 40% of students on SNAP or TANF.
- Once schools are identified as qualifying, we have the option to group all of the schools together. The reimbursement per meal is less, but all students qualify. We chose this route with the anticipation that our meals served would remain as strong as they were the in the prior year.
Meals Served:
Meals Served
| Meal |
2018-2019 |
2021-2022 |
2022-2023 |
| Breakfast |
429,917 |
496,510 |
451,919 |
| Lunch |
934,978 |
881,930 |
971,800 |
| Snack |
14,732 |
38,382 |
44,210 |
Total Meal Counts
| Year |
Total Meal Counts |
Enrollment |
| 2018-2019 |
1,379,627 |
8506 |
| 2021-2022 |
1,416,822 |
7958 |
| 2022-2023 |
1,467,929 |
8057 |
With CEP, our meal counts went up even as enrollment went down.
NM SB4 Healthy Universal School Meals:
- Governor Lujan Grisham signed NM SB4 Healthy Universal School Meals. This bill establishes high quality meals at no charge to all students in the state of New Mexico.
- The State of New Mexico will award funding to school districts that meet the criteria on the bill. Along with USDA regulations, there are added regulations from the State of New Mexico that will have to be met to receive these funds.
- The State of New Mexico will also provide more funding for NM Grown. New Mexico Grown is a program that allows schools to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. from local farmers. Los Lunas Student Nutrition has already been utilizing NM Grown for several years and we partner with amazing farmers in our area. The farmers are as follows:
Carrasco Farms, Wagner Farms, Roots Farm, Red Doc Farms, and North Valley Organics are some of the local farms that we purchase from.
Our department strives to make every day better for our students. We take pride in not only serving students healthy meals, but serving those meals with a smile. Our mission is to make every student feel welcome and cared for as they navigate through our lines.