Improving communications with parents on options for children's lunch accounts

MCPS elementary school menus now contain a blurb mentioning the existence a la carte items and the possibility of limiting these purchases by contacting your cafeteria manager, as does the a la carte section of the MCPS DFNS web site. Information on blocking your child's account was also sent out in the packet sent to parents of elementary school children for fall 2013. Lindsey testified to the Board of Education on 10/8/13 to request greater transparency. As of January 2017, MCPS now has interactive menus which include ingredients on their main dishes.

Ms. Caplon agreed to suggest to principals to send home a list of the a la carte and vending items available at their schools and information on blocking your child's account for a la carte at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. We do not know if this request was made.

Many cafeterias only offer water via a drinking fountain, which in some cases is only in the hall adjacent to the cafeteria. Children are often required to raise their hands and be recognized to get water.

This is apparently in compliance with federal and state regulations, according to the reading by MCPS and the State Department of Education.

Survey your cafeteria and discuss with your cafeteria manager the possibility of putting a large water container out for children to use to refill water bottles. PTAs may provide funding for this. Ask teachers to encourage the use of refillable water bottles.

There are also vending machines containing foods not approved under the MCPS wellness policy, such as soda and candy. These machines were turned on at the end of the school day in 2012-2013. Due to our advocacy, the Superintendent has directed Royalle, the vending company, to delay turning on these machines until 30 minutes after the end of the school day.

Karen testified to the Board of Education on 10/8/13 regarding unhealthy a la carte and vending items.

We met with Ms. Caplon and Mr. Baddour of Royalle on Aug. 9. We reviewed the products they had selected for the trial at Takoma Park Middle School (we asked for products that are majority whole grain, are low in sugar and/or high in fiber and do not contain Red 40 colorant; Yellow 5 & 6 colorant; Blue colorant; BHA/BHT/TBHQ; MSG/autolyzed yeast; HFCS; Potassium Bromate; Sodium Benzoate, Aspartame, Acesulfame Potassium, Cyclamates, Saccharin and Sucralose or vanillin). We liked the majority of the products that they suggested but asked that they not include some with harmful additives. We also asked that ice cream bars be limited to one day a week and the flavors of Sidekicks (frozen juice) that contain food dyes not be sold. On 8/29 Ms. Caplon said her team will test the flavor of Sidekicks that has no dyes. We are awaiting the final product list and anticipate it will include ice cream and Sidekicks with dyes at least until product testing is complete. Success for the trial will be based on volume of sales relative to last year from the months of Oct. - Dec. 2013. If it is successful, it will be expanded to other schools. As of early December, 2013, we know that a la carte and vending sales at Takoma Park Middle School are about 15% lower than last year. MCPS has indicated that they will continue to look for products that meet our criteria and sell as well as the products we wish to replace.

One product, Fruit Wave H2O was not in compliance with the guidelines due to a high calorie count. It has been removed due to our requests in late 2012 and early 2013. It has been reformulated with Stevia and will be sold again in 2013-2014. In addition, Fruit by the Foot has been removed from vending machines containing approved products due to non-compliance with the guidelines.

As of January, 2014, MCPS no longer serves "strawberry" milk, which contains harmful ingredients, including FD&C red dye #40.

MCPS believes flavored milk helps encourage kids to consume calcium; this does not appear to be a shared priority.

Karen testified to the Board of Education on 10/8/13 regarding the strawberry milk.

While the central office will not ask individual schools to put a "white milk only" message on students' accounts, some individual cafeteria managers are willing to do this.

MCPS apparently did a trial of the "Nudge" program to encourage healthier choices based on food placement and display, did not see big results and therefore discontinued it. Ms. Caplon agreed to share information on this trial with us as of April, 2013 but we still have no further information on it.

Ask if your cafeteria manager will allow parents to put "white milk only" on their child's lunch account and if so, communicate that information with other parents.

Teach your kids about the sugar in flavored milk and encourage them to consume plain milk.

There are books with ingredient lists for all the products sold in MCPS available at the offices of Food and Nutrition Services. We have scans of the ingredient lists from these books.

We have PDF files on a large portion of the foods sold in MCPS. We will be posting them to our web site.

At our prompting, this was brought to the attention of MCPS by County Councilmember George Leventhal during a Health and Human Services Committee meeting for Montgomery County on 10/10/13. On 11/13/13, Marla Caplon indicated that she had already spoken with Royalle, the vending company, to correct the situation.