Cape Cod kids dine in the digital lunchroom

School lunchrooms enter the digital age in Barnstable, Sandwich, and across the nation

By Teresa Martin

Lots of things about school lunches have changed in the past few years. Catsup is no longer the vegetable of choice. The quality of food is higher and healthier.  Nutrition education is about more than "drink your milk or else."  But one thing is still stuck in a time warp - the fumbling for dollars and change to pay.

Welcome to lunch v.2

But finally, change may be coming to that part of the lunchroom too. Here on the Cape, Barnstable and Sandwich have joined a growing number of schools across the county to implement cash-free lunch lines.

Instead of forgetting, losing, or misplacing lunch money, students might have the equivalent of lunch debit cards that they swipe in the cafeteria payment line to buy their breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Or, they might key their student ID number into a touch pad - no card needed at all.

Accounting for the program and parent approved

"I think every school district should look at going this route," said Patricia Casey, Food Services Director for the Sandwich District. "It provides accounting for your program and parents love it.

Sandwich started down this path in 2001 and it has just started in its third year of a system called NutriKids, which not only handles the payments but also provides parents with information on their offspring's eating habits, in much the same way that academic online systems share homework, attendance and grade information. When the account drops below a parent-specified level, it will even automatically notify the parent that its time to add more school lunch money to the account.

The system also provides lunchroom staff with information about student health/allergies or parental requests, such as "egg allergy" or "no double desserts."

Casey pointed out that the district has a number of diabetic students and health alerts that appear on the staff's screen when a student enters his or her payment ID is a non-intrusive way to let staff know, for example, that it OK to substitute a bottle of water for milk.

Easy to use

The digital lunchroom is an easy and straightforward process. Parents load funds into their student's account online for a small fee - $1.75 per transaction in Sandwich, for example - or send a check or cash into school where it is credited into the system. That's all there is to it.

"From my own parent perspective, it's great," said Bob Simmons, chair of the Sandwich School Committee and parent of four school-aged children.

"It saves a district time and money. I can't image not having it." - Patricia Casey, Food Services Director for the Sandwich District

"I was known for forgetting to give the kids their lunch money until the last minute -- or a few minutes after that! We've had this system for two years now and it allows me to login periodically and take care of their accounts when I'm paying my other bills," he explained.

"It also gives me a chance to look at the kids' accounts to see what they have been buying," he said, adding laughingly that he's learned he has  "a 9-year-old with a Funyuns addiction!"

(For the culturally uninitiated, Funyuns are corn snacks shaped like onion rings, made by FritoLay and popular in the elementary school crowd.)

Free/reduced lunch made invisible

Barnstable School Committee chair Patrick Murphy said his district has been working with its food service partner Chartwells for about three years to provide digital payment systems for its high school and intermediate school. 

Both Sandwich's Casey and Barnstable's Murphy say that one of the motivations for moving to a digital system was to address the issue that many students who would benefit from free or reduced lunches were not participating for fear of being singled out by their peers.

"We've been told that as kids age they become aware of being in that program and may stop eating lunch to avoid being pegged as a poor kid. When every student has a card then no one knows who is a 'free and reduced' lunch student and who isn't," said Murphy, noting that the approach has been deemed a success.

Growth category

There are more than a dozen vendors of systems that allow parents to digitally put money into a student account. Some approach the issue from a food service management perspective, while others combine school lunch payment programs with the many other schools fees, being a sort of central check out line for parents.

But no matter which direction digital lunchrooms are approached from, it is an idea whose time has clearly arrived. A June 2009 study by the School Nutrition Association found that nearly 70% of school food services in the US were using some sort of automatic payment system, and most of the rest were either looking or planning for implementation.

Grants overcome entry barrier

There is an initial investment involved in making the transtion. The dollars involved ranges widely by specific solution and district.  Purchase, installation, and training expenses can be perceived as a barrier, but can often be handled through grant funding.

For example, when Sandwich first moved to a digital lunch system, it funded the equipment purchase as part of breakfast program grant it had received.

Longer term cost saving benefits

Once in daily operation, a huge plus is the system's ability to generate state required monthly reporting. Casey said that pre-system, she would typically need to spend 3 to 4 hours per week generating paperwork. Today, it takes mere seconds and the click of few buttons.

In addition, the systems provides tools for better asset management; for example, providing sales data that helps schools purchase smarter and make stronger data driven decisions. This typically translates into cost savings, less waste, and less loss.

"It lets me spend more time on nutrition education and less on paperwork," said Casey. "It saves a district time and money. I can't image not having it."

Teresa Martin is a well-known Cape Cod technology leader who has served as  C.E.O. of the Cape Cod Technology Council and currently is Vice Chairwoman of OpenCape which is dedicated to fixing the Cape's dropped cell calls and upload issues. Read Teresa's tech blog, Cape Eyes on CapeCodToday.com here.