For lunch, a student might choose from pizza, a cheeseburger, a
plain salad or with meat, a triple peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, or a sub made to order – and that’s just the entree
choices on a given day – all for $1.25.

These choices can be found at Bradford Area High School Monday
through Friday in a lunch menu. There is a change of at least one
item offered each day which might include pork, gravy and a roll or
tacos.

Those choices are offered in the “reimbursable meal.” Along with
those entrees are a choice of up to three side dishes, which might
be soup or a vegetable or rice dish, and a milk. If a student wants
only one or two of those choices, they will pay different prices
for each of the items – it would no longer be considered a package
meal.

A system is in place that serves several students at a time
while others wait in line so that cafeteria personnel don’t get
inundated with orders.

The same system goes for the younger students at School Street
Elementary School while they get their lunches.

On Tuesday at School Street, students were offered a
cheeseburger, pepperoni pizza or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
as well as side dishes of green beans, macaroni salad and an
orange. The snack chips available to them were baked, not fried.
Chocolate and white milk were also available.

At first, third grader Taylor Crawford shook his head “no” to a
question of whether or not he liked pizza because the sandwich on
his plate was a “PB&J” according to his classmate, Patrick
Robinson.

Finally, with a toothless smile, Crawford said, “I’m supposed to
eat soft stuff.” He told a photographer that he lost eight
teeth.

Whatever their choice for lunch, all seemed very satisfied with
their meals, barely able to stop eating to talk.

Offering students baked instead of fried chips started about a
year ago and was implemented by Jon Hackett, general food manager
of food services for Sodexho, the company that has been supplying
the Bradford Area School District with its food and new “style” of
choices for lunch since 1999.

Previously, students ate the meals that were heated (at another
school) and delivered to them that day.

Hackett is part of a group of health and physical education
teachers and school nurses who have been working to find ways of
improving or introducing healthy eating and activity lifestyles for
students in the district. The group is called the Healthy Kids
Initiative.

They meet and brainstorm ideas that include getting students
active like they do at George G. Blaisdell and School Street
elementary schools as they start their days with an action song
such as the “Chicken Dance” or the “Hokey-Pokey” to get them
active.

The group has also discussed ideas, including having high school
students create videos that might contain dance songs such as the
“Macarena” or the “Twist” to be played each morning at the
schools.

In each of the cafeterias visited, there were either signs made
by children listing healthy foods, or posters offered by Sodexho
displaying nutrition information.

Times are apparently changing since the Pennsylvania Advocates
for Nutrition and Activity (PANA) provided numbers in April that
showed 35 percent of Pennsylvania children are overweight or are at
risk of being overweight.

The PANA was established by the Pennsylvania Department of
Health and is funded, in part, by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. The school campaign through the program is the
Keystone Healthy Zone Schools (KHZS) program.

The KHZS helps schools by providing them with free resources,
material, support and training. Schools that sign up for the
program become eligible for small grants that help them provide
programs and reading material.

Fifth graders Kristina Mangel and Kaitlyn Wilcox, who both took
full meals on their trays, including pepperoni pizza slices, said
their favorite lunch-time meals offered are chicken nuggets. Their
classmate, Jonnie Howard, said she was going to take an orange and
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, while Quinton VanGorder said he
was going for the pizza.

Megan McCartney, a third grader, said she likes the pizza
offered at the school, except of course her mom’s pizza.

“She puts garlic on it,” she said with a smile.

Hackett said of the high school cafeteria, that it serves as a
“model” for other school districts to check out.

High school students are offered baked snacks at least one day
of the week for the first time this year along with the younger
students.

“So far so good,” he said of the students buying the baked
snacks. He added the other higher fat items are taken off the
shelves on those days.

Hackett added they have had a record number of students eating
the food offered this year.

“Maybe it’s because they had it at (Floyd C.) Fretz Middle
School and they know the food is good – so why not eat it?” he
said.

Sodexho takes the Nutrient Standard Menu Planning route, meaning
that over a school week, and using USDA-approved computer software,
an analysis must be taken of the foods offered for a week’s
time.

That menu planning includes caloric, protein, calcium, iron, and
vitamin amount recommendations for children in certain age
groups.

Hackett said in the past, finding healthy items the students
will eat and those that are offered by the company has required him
to do quite a bit of research.