The Lee County School Board continues to ask the food services department to find healthy and fresh options for breakfast and lunch for students.

Board member Jada Langford-Fleming said she did not mean to sound harsh, but they can always better their game.

“Every one of our schools should have a garden, K-12, frankly,” she said.

The board members were given a sample of what is served at the schools at their board meeting Tuesday. Langford-Fleming said she entered the types food from the meal into an app she had on her phone, which showed how many carbohydrates were in the meal.

“Some of these kids eat at 10:30 in the morning and are expected to sustain high academic achievement throughout the day,” she said, adding that too many carbohydrates make both children and adults tired.

Board Chair Sam Fisher said he has three kids in the district who eat school meals every day.

The presentation showed examples for breakfast – Pop Tarts and donuts, but a healthier version – a K-12 line, which means they have to be whole grain, lean protein and lower in fat and sodium.

“It’s still a Pop Tart, donuts. How can we do better?”, Fisher asked, adding that for some kids, school is where they get their main meal.

District Food & Nutrition Services Coordinator Amy Carroll said the nutrition standards are set forth by the USDA. She said there are limits on calories, fats and beginning next school year, sugar has to be kept within certain restraints.

“There are weekly requirements that we have to meet,” Carroll said.

She said when they had to move all meal services to the curve during COVID there was not prepackaged hot breakfast protein items available.

“These items are way too high in sugar,” she said. “Over the past couple of years our biggest request is to ‘give us more hot items with protein.’ We are getting more into that.”

Carroll said they are looking into semi-scratch cooking verses heat and serve.

“It’s a lot of training. Training and baby steps. Maybe next semester we can go to two semi-scratch menus,” she said.

Food & Nutrition Services Director Kandace Messenger said the breakfast requirements must offer at least five items including fruits, vegetables, grains, meat/meat alternative and milk. She said students must take at least three items including a half cup of fruit or vegetable.

The same stands for lunch. A school lunch example includes whole grain chicken nuggets, whole grain dinner roll, reduced-sodium tater tots, apple slices and 1% white milk.

In addition to free breakfast and lunch, the school district also provides super snacks, an after school snack and supper.

Messenger said there are 43 schools enrolled for the super snacks, six for after school snacks, 16 for supper and eight community sites for the after school snack program.

She said the super meal is a more substantial meal, but also simple to serve as a snack.

“We have feedback from the schools that they were concerned the students did not receive enough food with after school snack,” Messenger said.

The School District is getting back to serving fresh fruit and vegetable bars. This is partially made possible through the 14 school gardens located around the district. Carroll said last year the gardens produced a little more than 17,000 pounds of vegetables.

“The goal is to get them to consistently be able to furnish their cafeteria with that produce and continue to expand,” she said.

There was also discussion about vending machines in schools.

Carroll said some of the items include Coke and Takis, while others provide water.

“They are not to be turned on until 30 minutes after the end of the school day. We are finding they are on all day. We don’t run the vending machines,” she said of the food services.

Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin said vending machines is an opportunity for the district to explore.