By Lorenzo Salinas

l.v.salinas@panews.com

 

Every student needs a good meal in order to perform well in school. Through proper nutrition, a student’s academic life becomes that much easier. Port Arthur Independent School District plans on making that proper nutrition a reality.

Erika Sampson is the director of Child Nutrition for PAISD, a job she’s held for a year now. She said she and her department will be having meetings, hiring new staff and implementing new software for the coming school year to better achieve that goal.

 

Special needs for special diets 

PAISD will have a dedicated dietician on hand starting for the 2018-2019 school year.

“We have kids with a lot of allergies, so this will take steps to address students with soy, milk, peanut and other allergies,” Sampson said.

Sampson said the district already offers a variety of options for students with special dietary needs, including those with religious observances.

“We offer fish and some cheese options, and we try to go meatless sometimes for our vegetarian options,” Sampson said. “But we do offer fish on Fridays during Lent and try to work with students.”

In addition, the nutrition department will implement new technology to help accommodate student needs for school meals.

“We’re publishing menus online and introducing interactive apps for students to use,” Sampson said. “And we’re training our people on new recipes, new regulations, new procedures… We’re improving on what we have.”

 

Tasty yet nutritious

Sampson pointed out how the district was keeping up with current state guidelines by analyzing the district’s menus after state audits from last year. These audits include observances of dietary needs such as sodium intake and fresh produce options for students.

“We have to meet certain requirements…” she said. “But I believe you can be healthy and still have food that tastes good without adding too much salt. That way we can continue meeting state and federal requirements.”

In their effort to balance the fine line between healthy and tasty, Sampson and her department have been getting feedback from students and staff regarding their menu selections and that all-important taste factor.

“I think our menu could have a good variety (of foods), but be cost effective, too.”

To that end, Sampson used an example of a dish she would like to introduce to the new menu, shrimp popper salad. It would be a food item that would be tasty but also have plenty of greens in it.

 

Produce and home cooking

Sampson said many of the schools’ fruits and vegetables would be purchased through the Department of Defense’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. It’s a program that allows schools to buy fresh produce with USDA Foods entitlement funds.

“Students could like fruits and vegetables, especially pre-K through elementary students when they’re cut up,” Sampson said.

Sampson is also expanding the menu with food items from her family’s kitchen.

“One thing I’ve been meaning to implement is something from my mother’s recipes,” Sampson said. “I’ve had to standardize it so all the schools could use it and it would have less salt.”

The down-home tater tot casserole would be offered with a choice of chicken or beef. Sampson said she and staff were going to cook it for lunch soon among themselves to gather feedback on it.

 

Can’t please everybody 

Sampson said the most common challenge in providing nutritious and delicious meals to students on a daily basis was trying to please everybody.

“You try to please everybody, but you can’t please everybody,” Sampson said. “As a result, I try to provide color to our (menu) items. I like a variety of color with my meals.”

Through utilizing a promotional health slogan from one of her former places of work, Sampson referenced the “5 a Day the Color Way” as an effort to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables.

“If a child has mashed potatoes and fried fish, it’s going to look bland,” she said. “That’s why we want to mix some color in there — carrots, greens, sweet potato fries and salads.”

Sampson described the color scheme as her approach to a more varied menu for Port Arthur schools.

Sampson said she was a proponent for letting policies be decided at the state level rather than the federal level — especially since Texas has some more of the restrictive nutritional policies by her account.

“Of course, your federal guidelines are going to outweigh everything, but Texas leads the way in child nutrition,” Sampson said.

In her previous positions with school districts and state, Sampson said other states have looked at Texas as a standard for child nutrition and how to implement USDA policies.

 

Free, reduced price meals

PAISD Child Nutrition Department is responsible for roughly 8,600 students’ dietary needs. Out of that number, about 83 percent applied last year for free or reduced price school meals. It was a responsibility that the department seemed to take seriously.

“After Harvey, a lot of people qualified for displacement,” Sampson said. “You may think you’re not homeless, but you’re homeless if you’re living with family because you had nowhere else to go.”

Sampson said there were different rules or requirements to determine homelessness after Harvey, but it was a big deal that the district took seriously.

“Our counselors helped us identify students in need,” Sampson said.

She was quick to praise PAISD for the way in which it encouraged students to eat breakfast and lunch.

“They need breakfast… Our principals and superintendent are very big on our students eating breakfast and lunch,” Sampson said. “They give time for students to eat and finish their meals. I can’t say that about some other schools.”

Sampson said she and staff would be on hand at the district’s One-Stop Registration July 24 to help parents fill out meal applications for free and reduced price school meals.