School Lunch Information
Updated 08/13/08
Nutritious meals are essential to the growth and development of our children. Well- balanced lunches are available to your child on a daily basis in the school cafeteria. Penn Manor School District participates in the National School Lunch Program, which means that we must meet certain nutritional criteria when we serve your child lunch. Each lunch we serve offers your child: Protein, Fruits, Vegetables, Bread, and Milk. The lunch prices for the 2008-2009 school year as follows: Elementary-$2.00, Secondary-$2.15/$2.75/$3.00/$3.25, Reduced lunches-$.40, and Adult lunches-$3.40/$3.80.
Offer vs. Serve: We encourage you to discuss menu selections at home with your child. Help them to learn to make wise nutritious menu selections. Your child may refuse 1 or 2 menu items as they proceed through the lunch line and still meet the requirements of the school lunch program.
Lunch tickets (Pre-paid lunches): As a service to parents and to help students avoid lost or forgotten lunch money, lunches can be purchased in advance by either check or cash. Checks should be made payable to: "Penn Manor Food Service." Students may only use one pre-paid lunch daily, and may not use their ticket to purchase ala carte. We will remind your child when his/her lunch ticket is getting low. The cost for a twenty (20) meal lunch ticket is Elementary-$40.00 and Secondary-$43.00. Please indicate on the check your child’s name and grade.
Introducing “Cafe Prepay”: The Penn Manor School District Food Service Department is happy to announce that credit card payments to your Child’s lunch account are now possible on the Internet. Café Prepay, the online prepay site for computerized school cafeteria point-of –sale systems allows you to use your Visa, Master Card, or Discover Card to prepay your child’s lunches.
We are offering this service at all schools. The Café Prepay site can be accessed on the Internet at www.pay4lunch.com or through the link on our Food Service web page at www.pmsd.k12.pa.us . If you have any questions or comments about this program, please contact Randy L. Wolfgang at 872-9500 ext. 2228 or e-mail at randy.wolfgang@pmsd.k12.pa.us.
A 6% handling fee is added to each prepay increment. Students utilizing this service will receive credit for an extra lunch.
Free and Reduced Price Lunches: Penn Manor School District has received the Federal Income Eligibility Guidelines for free and reduced price meals for qualified students and their families. These guidelines and an application for free and reduced price meals will be hand-carried home with your child on the first day of school. We will be using a multiple children application this year. Families with more than one child should list all children on the same application. We request that the application be returned to the school as soon as possible if you feel you qualify for these benefits.
Menu: Each month your child will bring home a copy of the new monthly menu. In addition to the regular daily entree, your child can choose the alternate hot or cold sandwich (B lunch), a peanut butter and jelly sandwich(C lunch), or yogurt and string cheese (D lunch), offered daily. In addition, ala carte items such as ice cream, water,
and baked snack items is offered on a daily basis for $.60 each.
History
The history of school lunch began when President Harry S. Truman signed the National School Lunch Act on June 4, 1946. Though school foodservice began long before 1946, the Act authorized the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The legislation came in response to claims that many American men had been rejected for World War II for military service because of diet-related health problems. The federally assisted meal program was established as a “measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities.” While the school lunch program has been in existence for nearly 60 years and has been seen significant changes over this period, the original premise of the legislation had remained largely unchanged. The National School Lunch Act has since been amended number times. Public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions may participate in the NSLP.
On October 11, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Child Nutrition Act of 1966. The Act established the School Breakfast Program (SBP). The SBP is a federally assisted meal program that provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free breakfasts to children and public and nonprofit schools. President Johnson remarked during the signing of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, “good nutrition is essential to good learning.”
“Type A” Lunch
All “Type A” (reimbursable) school lunches must follow a meal pattern established by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The school lunch must offer the following-
1 cup fluid milk
¾ cup juice, fruit, and/or vegetable
1 serving grains/bread
1 meat/meat alternate serving
This meal pattern has remained essentially for the past 60 years. Calories and saturated/unsaturated fats are monitored in school lunches, but newer trends in less protein and counting carbohydrates are not addressed in the school lunch program.
“Type D” Lunch
Starting with the school year 2005-2006 a D lunch alternative was introduced in the elementary schools. The D lunch consists of a 4 ounce yogurt and 1 ounce string cheese entrée in an effort to offer students with a lower fat, lower calorie alternative. This new alternate allows the student to substitute the yogurt and string cheese for the A entrée while still receiving the same fruits, vegetables, and milk. Healthy food choices are part of the cafeterias initiative to battle childhood obesity concerns.
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