Quality and access to food for students became a concern for food service staff at Madison Metropolitan School District after a plan to shift some employees to other schools was announced.
Staff reallocations are scheduled for the next academic year. The move comes as MMSD aims to move staff from Madison East, West and La Follette to other schools with the intention to better serve students. However, the union that represents MMSD’s food service employees, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 60, warns that staff reallocations may negatively impact access to breakfast and lunch for students.
The union issued two statements — one to MMSD Food Service Management and another to the district’s school board — to reconsider staff reallocations.
In its letter to MMSD leadership, AFSCME highlights how a reduction in staff will impact students’ ability to be served food in a timely fashion.
“Our staff at these schools are already working hard to ensure students are served in a timely fashion in a way that also keeps staff safe on the job. The reduction to a three-person team at these schools will result in the following severe reductions in the quality and quantity of meals that are able to provide for a very hungry student body,” it said in its statement to MMSD Food Service Management.
La Follette is the only high school that offers second-chance breakfast and has the highest number of students who receive free and reduced meals. Staff estimates that around 100 students pick up breakfast at 8 a.m., before the second chance breakfast, and 250-300 at 1:10 a.m. Many students also use the grab-and-go service outside of the main office.
The union expects that up to 300 students will be negatively impacted at La Follette by staff reallocations.
At East High School, the Bistro line would close and shift students to other points to get their food. At West, one of the lines would be shut down, which would force students to sit in longer lines.
One employee voiced her concerns for students’ access to food in a timely manner before they would have to go back to class.
“I’m in the field and I see what happens if we could have the perfect world scenario with a balance between feeding our children and educational minutes. Every student would get however long they need to eat,” said Nativity Townseo.
While the district said that staff reallocations are meant to best serve students, Townseo can’t imagine how changes would make a positive impact.
“If we take away people from any scenario, where the lines are already pretty long, I mean, they want to take away a whole computer system by making it one line,” Townseo said. “And the schools house about 1,000-plus kids. So, if you could imagine, 1,000-plus kids waiting in one line to eat lunch.”
An additional component to changes will be that the MMSD schools will move away from making meals from scratch to using the Food Processing Center. The shift will not have any impact on nutritional value, but is intended as a cost-saving measure where staff will instead reheat frozen meals.
Still, the union notes that less intensive food preparation isn’t a real solution to reduced staffing at the three schools.
“While we certainly would not minimize the difficulties our elementary and middle school colleagues face, we feel increasing the workload in some schools in order to decrease it in others only moves the problem around,” the union said.
In a statement made to Madison365 from MMSD, the district affirmed that it is simply a move to better serve students and that there is no overall reduction in staff, only a relocation.
The district stated that second-chance breakfast will not be eliminated. When asked if the availability of second-chance breakfast would be impacted, MMSD simply stated, “It will not.”
Staffing reallocations are intended to take place in the next academic year.
