Kitchen manager questions district's food service choice

Shirley Lanum is the district kitchen manager based at the central kitchen at Port Susan Middle School. She questions Stanwood-Camano School District's choice in hiring a management company to provide food service district wide.

Thank you, Kristi Pihl, for doing the research concerning the school district draining money from the

general fund for contracted food general fund for contracted food service with board approval.

The board is clueless and cares nothing about where our tax dollars go. I suggest that the board read Kristi's article and resign — immediately.

Every cent coming out of the general fund affects class sizes. Remember this when your child comes home and tells you there was no staff available to help them.

Since I am on record from the May 5 board meeting and could not attend the last meeting, I want to set the record straight.

When Dr. Jean Shumate was hired, she had consultants review each school district department. The food service consultant was Mr. Jerry Snodgrass.

Within two years of Dr. Shumate's reign, we said goodbye to an in-house director (a program that was running in the black), and hello to a management company.

I was part of the hiring committee that recommended Chartwells as our management company. I loved the training opportunities promised, but they never came to pass.

I was very happy with the Chartwells' proposal, lots of glossy, shiny promises that have not been kept.

Our interview team found all candidates from Chartwells unacceptable. The last candidate interviewed for the job is our current director, Kristi Snodgrass.

Her husband is Jerry Snodgrass, the consultant hired by Dr. Shumate.

The school district listed several things that Chartwells has done for us. The June 2 report quotes Mr. Platt as saying, "Chartwells' corporate system provides guidance with food safety and handling."

I consider that statement an insult to our food service staff. Our staff is the best trained in the food service industry. The only "safety" training we received from Chartwells was mandated by OSHA and was connected to a freezer fine/violation.

Long before Chartwells, our staff attended workshops, conferences and classes; however, not with Chartwells, because it costs them money.

Two thirds of our staff is certified with the School Nutrition Association, a professional organization devoted solely to school food service. You can look up our district health inspections on Snohomish Health District's Web site.

Our schools have a 100 percent pass rate, consistently — even before my 11 years with the school district. Our food service staff does an outstanding job; we enjoy feeding the kids and getting to know them.

Another bonus attributed by Gary Platt was that Chartwells received recall notices on food items. As the district kitchen manager, I was notified by four different sources when items in the past were recalled. Recall information is not exclusive to Chartwells.

Mr. Platt mentioned Chartwells' bidding system. However, it is a complicated process.

On the other hand, Food Services of America provides customers with a school food service specialist who gathers all the pertinent information for the bid process with products that meet USDA nutritional guidelines.

There is no cost or time savings for the district by using Chartwells for food bidding.

Food Services of America provides us with the information, and a wider array of goods outside Chartwells' purchasing power.

Washington was one of the first to comply with the Healthy Foods Initiative. The new nutritional guidelines ban candy sales on school grounds.

It's a great start to keep our kids healthy, despite the fact it cost our district revenue. However, other schools overcame the lost revenue, we have not.

We are now serving fewer meals with Chartwells. In this suffering economy, we should be serving more meals and the free and reduced percentages should be rising.

The issue with having a "for profit" company in charge of the food service program is just that. It's for profit.

Chartwells would not be involved in school food service unless there was a profit to be had. The contract management fee of $35,000 would, otherwise, go directly into our general fund. Chartwells has been shown to be fiscally irresponsible managing our program.

Food service is supposed to fund our salaries and food costs with minimal funds from the state.

If we are managed well, we contribute to the general fund for incidentals, janitorial services, power, and water and put aside operating expenses in reserves.

- Shirley Lanum

Stanwood