Nutrition Services Changes
There's a story in today's Seattle Times about the re-assignment of the former head of Nutrition Services, "Seattle schools nutrition director tried, now he's off the menu". The article is by Nicole Brodeur and it provides about a third of the story, so it's impossible to determine the actual course of events, but the former nutrition director of Seattle Public Schools, Eric Boutin, is no longer in that role. There is some vague, dark talk that suggests that he was somehow forced out by the union, but there are no facts and there's no explanation. Ms Brodeur only tells one side of the story and doesn't even tell all of that, but it clearly prompts union bashing (which dutifully appears in the comments after the story).
Where is the District's Communication department riding to the rescue? Nowhere.
Where is the District's Communication department riding to the rescue? Nowhere.
Comments
C'mon Charlie - expecting integrity or journalism or both from this anti-union hack?
BlameTheUnionBlethen
My "unavailable" status had me taking and receiving over 40 calls (not to mention dozens of emails)from my office (of 26 years, featuring a telephone with a listed number), my cellphone, having 3 scheduled meetings at District headquarters, and a web page with a "contact" tab that someone in her office could have easily shown the writer how to use if she really wanted the facts.
As it is I will say that Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson surrounded herself at SSD with a class of individuals who did not really fit in an accountable, relationship building, staff supportive environment.
The process of digging them out so that the "ship" they have "streered toward ground" can be corrected and the community can turn the page, continues.
And it had nothing to do with food. Believe it or not, there are very cabable peolple at the District who know about healthy foods for students and had that knowledge well before Mr. Boutin came to SSD. Its really insulting to suggest otherwise.
This time I have to give credit to the Communications Department.
Despite his warm and fuzzy traits noted in today's Times puff piece, Mr. Boutin has indicated an intent to sue the District and has retained a "lawyer".
His current publicity campaign is an attempt to bait the District into giving him ammunition.
Based on his record over the last year, he has precious little beyond that he "discovered" vegan hot dogs and hummus and brought them to Seattle.
I am also a target so need to be very careful.
At this point, limiting District liability to failed administrators seeking to cash in on severence, is a good thing. Its about time somebody did.
If you want to know more, call me, I'm available.
Anyone who reads this blog and has watched the District over the last few years knows how powerful labor has been at the administrative level of Seattle School District.
However, the suggestion that "changes" in the Nutrition Department are somehow related to some kind of pioneering "revolution" in healthy foods at SSD are absurd.
Although I rerely burnish these credentials, I point out that in the mid-1990's I was awarded "Man of the Year" by (former Board President) Brita Butler-Wall's "Citizens Campaign against Comercialism in Schools" for ridding junk foods from vending machines in Seattle Schools and making sure they stay out (to this day). We did this so kids would eat healthy.
That was also me advocating for keeping junk food vendors away from secondary schools in Seattle for 15 YEARS.
I must have just been floundering, huh? Since it took Mr. Boutin to enlighten this backward community.
To try to scapegoat others for personal failures is a typical and expected tactic (Hello Silas) but to try to make it about kids and nutrition is simply absurd.
Cordell Carter was Mr. Boutins boss until he left several months ago.
Get the picture?
"Food revolution", hardly.
All of the food is now cooked exclusively in the Central Kitchen at least one day before it is served. It is all then trucked to the schools where is it either just re-heated or, for some foods, assembled and re-heated. There is no real cooking done in any of the school buildings anymore.
The switch to exclusively centralized cooking was supposed to save money. It is unclear what, if any, savings resulted. Staff never reported back on whether their anticipated savings were realized and the Board never asked for the report. What savings might have been realized (through economies of scale in the central kitchen and reduced hours for nutrition services staff in schools) may have been lost through diminished sales.
I know that there was a potentially hazardous condition in the central kitchen - an ice patch on the freezer floor - that was not remedied until the union made an exceptional fuss over it.
I know that there was a PERC finding against the District that came out of Nutrition Services, which means that the leadership there committed a pretty gross violation of the contract and labor law and refused to correct it themselves.
For all of the anti-union talk and all of the claims that something couldn't be done because the union wouldn't allow it, I have always found all of the unions at the District to be extraordinarily open to allowing waivers and exceptions and negotiating changes. People just assume they won't, don't ask them, and then blame the union for being inflexible. I have even seen people assume the union won't allow something without talking to them and then go ahead and make the change anyway in violation of the agreements.
Think of the teachers' union and how they negotiated the changes in the teacher evaluations. That went really well... until Dr. Goodloe-Johnson got weird and tried to short-cut the process with unilateral demands.
Finally, let's remember that the District is an equal party to every contract they sign. If the union is to be faulted for an element of the contract then the District is equally at fault for it because they agreed to it as well.
The Times called our office sometime before 6 AM this morning.
Like much of the story, the writer didn't accurately report the text on our website. We only operate the Districts kitchen and do the production (work).
We have no voice in the menu or dietary offerings. We work with what management provides and directs. Menu's and food offerings have nothing to do with the "wages, hours and terms of employment" which the law sets as our responsibility to our brothers and sisters.
ALL of us are District employees and the smoke screen the Times and Mr Boutin are attempting here depends heavily on readers taking the stereotypical view of labor and its leaders.
Dave Westberg
How about this.. if the union wants to make a good image for itself, they should refuse to serve this slop and demand healthier food for their customers. Put union power to use helping the people they serve as well as their own. Isn't that the union ideal, to help all citizens?
It prepares 19,000 lunches and 6,800 breakfasts for children and staff on every regular school day?
19/47 = 40.4% eat Lunch
6.8/47 = 14.5% eat Breakfast
According to OSPI information for the SPS:
Special Programs
Free or Reduced-Price Meals (May 2011) 43.3%
---------------------
Looks like the meals are not really in demand by the students .... so has anyone at the District determined why?
Is it the amount of time to be served or what is being served?
At West Seattle High with McDonald's and PCC grocery across the street and Safeway and Jack-in-the-Box a short walk..... I wonder with 47.7% of WSHS students on Free or Reduced meals, what percentage of WSHS students eat lunch at school?
========
Perhaps Nutrition Services ... should be called Food Service until further notice.
Please read the posts. We have been involved in improving funding for the program and advocating for better quality for over 40 years.
In the 1970's we were responsible for the national school meal program be offered in EVERY school and not just some.
Since then our efforts have never stopped.
Is Kirby Wilbur an "Idealist" also?
Dave W.
Your worker at my school told me how kids need chocolate milk or they won't drink milk. Even LA schools dropped sugared milk recently after parent pressure. Show me your union statements about nutrition and I'll eat my hat ( or one of the meals served at SPS, same difference)
Susan
Do I feel sorry for the kids who are eligible for free and reduced lunch, and therefore are given these barely edible foods on a daily basis? Yes - I do. Is is better than no lunch? I'll give you that - but just barely.
So much of that food goes straight into the trash, then kids spend the afternoon hungry and cranky, getting disciplined. I've seen it.
The second kid said that the school lunch smelled yucky and she didn't want to sit at a table where kids were eating it. An innocent comment, but manifesting in elitist behavior.
open ears
I'm still waiting to see the work your members have done to improve the quality of school food. Is that one of the items they bargain for along with pay and working conditions? I may be a utopian, but shouldn't a responsible union care about it's customers, not they have a choice of vendors, but they are kids for god's sake and the poor ones especially need a good healthy meal or two at school every day.
Since you're tooting your horn about being a visionary (ridding schools of vending 15 years ago), this should be a fair question.
Why is the food still absolutely horrendous and nutritionally unacceptable 15 years later? It's actually gotten worse. This wouldn't fly in the private sector.
Here's a 2005 quote from you:
The vendors have been allowed to sell within 200 feet. Their most vocal critic has been David Westberg, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 609, which represents Seattle Public Schools' cafeteria workers.
Westberg said only three or four people have been selling pizzas near Cleveland, Franklin and Garfield high schools. Still, he's concerned the vendors could jeopardize union workers' positions and benefits.
"If 16 kids go off campus, somebody's mother loses health insurance," he said.
+++++++++++++
The food is so bad that even kids won't eat it. So, how many moms are without health insurance since it's more than 16 kids not eating?
Robyn
The Blethens has been blaming the unions since the Wobblies days & WW I.
Last year, one of my students created an amazing 10 minute play about Blethen, the Times, the Wobblies, and early union sabotaging.
(Anybody want to tour it?)
Plus ca change...
-JC.
Can you stomach handle that slop your members swill out every day to needy kids? Take the challenge and eat SPS hot food 5 days a week for a month and give us a report.
The people doing the food prep don't set the menu, don't write the recipes, and don't select the ingredients.
Let's say that the Pinto was not a great car. To what extent is that the fault of the guy working on the assembly line attaching mufflers? What is the union's responsibility for the Pinto's quality? Should the United Auto Workers union have threatened a strike over the low quality of the car's design? While the Pinto was not a great car, could you understand why auto workers wouldn't like seeing people buying Toyotas and Datsuns and why they might want high tariffs put on them?
-yuck all around
I don't feel we are responsible for debating the National School Meal Program to a bunch of union haters simply because the Times says they could'nt reach me overnight.
What I will say is that food had NOTHING to do with the post these comments are being made on.
Again, the Times and its subject want to make what happened in leadership at SSD about food and its not.
By the way, I have eaten school meals since the 1980's and can produce a receipt for every one I have purchased up to and including yesterday in the JSCEE cafeteria. I have hundreds if not thousands of proof.
I was also the one who spoke repeatedly (while we picketed) to the Board two years ago against the ending of cooking kitchens in Seconday Schools. This blog knows it because Charlie, Meg, Chris and Melissa, saw me do it over and over again. We fought until we could fight no more and compromised. We still hope to return to scratch cooking in the future.
To that end I have been working on the issue in a number of ways including sending links to national organizations promoting "scratch" cooking in schools, etc. Melissa, Charlie, et.al., know that as well.
We will not apologize for taking our responsiblities seriously and advancing vigorously.
As for blooging "Idealists" that feel we should tell members to refuse to work? What planet are you living on?
Btw, the "bulkanization" of lunches at Seattle took place a year before the object of the Times puff piece was hired but cost 23 of our members health insurance.
Two years since, several have YET to get it back.
The fight continues.
By the way, I hope these messages get to the decision makers in the District that could improve food quality tomorrow.
I can understand not wanting vendors outside the doors of the school. Again, not in their interests.
But honestly, don't blame them for the food. They are not at the table for most (if any) discussions on food and how it is cooked. They give input (especially based on what they hear day in and day out from students) but if the district didn't listen to parents saying enrollment was going up, they surely don't listen to the union saying, the kids don't like the food.
And what power would they have to change it? I'm not sure how you bargain that into any contract.
Ms. Brodeur seldom goes beyond the surface. The real question is why the district is demoting Mr. Boutin. I can't believe it was just on union issues. And now it seems Mr. Boutin is getting a lawyer.
I think the change has to come from the district in the form of better hiring practices and listening to people on the ground about what is happening in our schools.
Talk about drifting off topic.
After reading all of this (with comments) I have to ask;
How is bashing the union so that yet another fired administrator can extort a rich severance package for himself going to stop kids from throwing away chocolate milk?
Did I miss something?
If Dave eats that garbage every day for 9 months, he's either very sick by now or he is superhuman. That junk is poison, pure and simple and the district could do better, but the food workers could make a stink if they wanted to. You want union bashing? It's a long list and an easy target. This is about food in children's bellies and it's crime to give them sugared milk and food fit for pigs.
Then (while they fight among themselves); go for the big payday.
"Secondly, there is no competition, it is not analogous to Ford."
No competition? For food service? There's a TON of competition. Not only do students have the option of bringing their lunch from home, but every high school except Cleveland has nearby lunch options. I wrote about it in response to Robyn's comment at 2:06.
First, the Times writes a glamour piece about a big shot who got a rough deal (which I know NOT to be the case) and short shrift the union by calling them before dawn for comments.
After criticizing unions in general the writers are appalled at the "power" they show by speaking out about a bad boss.
THEN. the thread goes on to repeatedly procede to tell the union what they SHOULD be speaking out on, the food.
Let me tell you, there are plenty of us at the District who are pleased that the Time's boy is gone. Problem is that only the UNION employees have any protection and can speak out and those guys were doing it the whole time Don Kennedy and the former superintendent were here.
Often the rest of us saw them protesting at Board meetings when the rest of us had to just keep our mouths shut for fear of retaliation. They have posters all over about cases they have won against abuse of power at SSD.
What kind of Americans criticize workers who chose to be organized in a union that can fearlessly speak truth to power?
Speaking for those of us in unrepresented shops in the district, we wish we could do that without fear.
If we could, the world would be a very different place.
I have eaten many of their lunches and they are not as bad as many of these bloggers say.
Boutin eliminated some of the favorites of the schools and examples are the smokie roll and sweet and sour sauce for the egg rolls.
The problem is the District listens to no one with reason.
They listen to smarmie suits and ties who most of the time lie.
The new District vision statement ought to be "Denial with a smile".
I eat school lunches daily and I eat it with the food service workers and they talk about how they would like to get better food to serve the kids. I like most of the food. It definitley could improve. Maybe the District could realize this by asking the worker what could be done.
If improved they could pay their mid-managers more for doing nothing
and continue to abuse the children.
Example laying off counselors and taking, them out of the WSS
That department likes to bully their workers and make them feel guilty for taking a day off if they have bronchitis. Meanwhile they continue to hire and pay more to mid-level managers. The food service department just mirrors the fact that administration is the onus of the district.
Before you bad mouth maybe you could investigate instead of believing anti-union Broedeur.
Children who toss food out, might actually be the product of parents coddling of a child's whim, instead of actually bad food. One of my child's friends actually only eats Kraft mac & cheese and ravioli in a can, it's his daily diet and he is representative of many of the children.
The union doesn't buy the food or select the menu. They are only preparing the food that is supplied.
How can anyone blame the union for food quality? Blame the administrator who okay'd and purchased the food.
Sandy
Out with this lame Sundquist, Maier, Martin-Morris and Carr.
They are hurting the futures of our students.
The union was very opposed to centralized food preparation. Union questioned quality of food provided that way and whether students would continue to eat school meals at the then current rate ... if centralized food preparation occurred.
Looks like the Board and Central Admin own most of this food fiasco.
Emile
As a parent, I understand the opposition to putting TFA members in charge of classrooms, as they don't have the same credentials as other teachers. But even after reading all these comments, I don't immediately see how the children benefit from a unionized kitchen, if the workers are just preparing the food and don't have any say over ingredients or recipes.
Union workers are key to society
as they stand for better living conditions for all. This includes the kids and their futures in which they serve daily. If people go to work and work hard should they not make a living wage? I believe food service workers deserve this also. They are people whom if you would read earlier in a blog post by me that they talk of how they would like to get better quality of food to serve children.
Why do you not ask the question about the fact why Central administration by far outspends on their own department more than any other district in this state per pupil? Maybe we could use that savings to purchase better food.
What are we getting for that?
Stop attacking line workers and start with the big problem, the School board and central admin.
www.__ckedcompany.com, and those first 2 letters were an f and then a u.
the kid who started it even got coverage in the wall street journal and in the economist.
CrazyDaze
We're a vegetarian free/reduced family who eats pretty healthy at home (lots of cheap produce and dried beans) and although I would love to save the expense of sending a lunch for my kid, I can't because she can't open all the packaging fast enough AND she doesn't like all the junk that's added to the food to make it "palatable" for children (e.g. she won't eat the mac n cheese at school because there's too much cheese goo).
I recently found out that a frequent breakfast offering for my child last year was a little box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and juice! Can you believe it! I don't want to offend parents who actually buy sugared cereal at home, but the fact that it's being offered at school is majorly disappointing to me.
The argument that the school has to offer junk food or else the kids won't eat is absurd. Following that logic, maybe they should just start serving candy for meals and then more kids would be eating school lunches! (oh, wait, candy doesn't meet the "nutritional standards" ... barely).
Re your characterization of the PERC decision: I see that in 2007 the PERC dismissed an unfair labor practice complaint the Union filed. The conclusion that the District engaged in an unfair labor practice was from 1997. As a labor lawyer (not for the School District), I don't agree that a finding by PERC that a party committed a ULP is so damning as you suggest. The District raised numerous defenses to the charge that it was not allowed to unilaterally move from two to one lunch periods, and the PERC examiner ultimately agreed with the Union that the District should have bargained before making the change. Really not a major indictment.
Students who rely on breakfast & lunch at school to be nourished are poorly served.
When I was in school, a hot lunch was a special treat to be looked forward to.
However, even when my daughter was eligible for FRL, she brought her lunch from home because over sweetened yogurt and waffle sticks was not her thing.
Many of the school grounds have space and sun for a garden. They could be growing their own veggies- perhaps not enough to feed the whole school year round, but enough to make better use of the land, save money & enrich the curriculum.
Integrating food into the curriculum
The changes made to the lunch period at Muir build on the school's longtime commitment to hands-on experience. Every student, from kindergarten through fifth grade, spends time at least once every three weeks in a lovely instructional garden built by students in 2000. Students also meet twice a month in a cooking classroom. These gardening and cooking programs are supported by funds from the Network for a Healthy California, which channels federal nutrition education monies to schools where more than 50 percent of students qualify for National Lunch Program subsidies. School districts use the funds for a variety of purposes; Berkeley applies them to salaries for garden and cooking-classroom instructors.
In the garden, students help tend the soil, plant seeds, care for the plants, and then harvest their crops, which often become ingredients for seasonal dishes that they help prepare in the kitchen classroom. In both garden and kitchen, students learn where food comes from, about nutrition, natural cycles and processes, and the importance of conserving water and soil. They study such topics as regional and industrial food systems, while experiencing the pleasure of cooking, not to mention learning how to use sharp implements safely. Over and over, teachers and parents comment on their children's willingness to try unfamiliar foods that they themselves have grown and prepared, and their subsequent discovery that healthy food tastes good.
http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/rethinking-lunchtime-making-lunch-integral-part-education
I'm not sure how you think you were ripped off by anything I wrote here. It's not just your truth and I never heard any of it from you. I got all of this from public testimony by Dave Westburg and others. None of this was original to you.
I always find it ironic when people complain about complaints. If you have solutions, you are free to offer them. If not, you're just whining.
What complaints, exactly, did I make?
Photos by Steve Shay
The West Seattle Candidates Forum at SSCC on Thursday, July 28. Candidates, L-R running for Seattle School Board District VI, West Seattle are Incumbent Steve Sundquist, Marty McLaren, emcee and SSCC English professor Mike Hickey, Joy Anderson, Nick Esparza. Sundquist's running mates all challenged him on school closures, over-spending on administration salaries, and bad -tasting food in school cafeterias. CLICK ON PHOTO FOR SLIDESHOW.
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