School Lunch Price Creeps Upward in 6 Districts

Students in six Orange County school districts will face higher lunch prices when classes begin this month, an increase officials said is being driven by the rising cost of food and heftier pay for cafeteria workers.

After 19 years of keeping prices steady, Garden Grove schools have increased the lunch charge to $1 in elementary schools and $1.25 in middle and high schools. Prices have also risen in the Buena Park, Laguna Beach Unified, Tustin Unified, Huntington Beach Union High and Fullerton Joint Union High school districts.

Students who receive federally subsidized lunches will not be affected, officials said.

“You know how much food costs at the grocery store? Well, it costs us too,” said Liz Martinez, who works in the cafeteria at Fullerton Union High, where the cost of lunch will rise from $2.25 to $2.50.

But Martinez added that she is delighted with how such economic changes are affecting her: “We got a really great raise this year,” she said.

Across Orange County, officials said they have tried to avoid raising prices. They don’t want students learning on empty stomachs, and they know many students, even those who are not on the federally funded free and reduced-cost lunch program, cannot afford restaurant prices.

School lunch programs that don’t pay for themselves will bleed dollars from teacher salaries, textbook funds and playground equipment, said Debra Appel, director of food services for the Laguna Beach Unified School District, where the lunch price is rising from $2.00 to $2.25.

“Food prices have gone up. The cost of living has gone up. Gas prices have gone up, and when gas prices go up, that affects everything,” she said.

Marilyn Buchi, a school trustee in Fullerton, said officials must strike a balance. “They keep the prices as low as they can, but it has to pay for itself,” she said. “We don’t want textbook money and instructional money going for lunches.”

Some parents complain that lunch prices are already so high that it’s cheaper to pack a lunch.

“I can’t afford the rising prices. I think we’ll buy some bologna,” said Jonel Lancaster, whose daughter attends school in Anaheim, where prices are not going up this year but have before.

Despite the increases, food service officials stressed that the carefully balanced selections of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables that appear every day at lunch are still a fabulous deal.

The fact that districts have managed to keep prices so low for so long is itself a minor miracle, the result of painstaking shopping and careful menu planning, according to Karen Papilli, director of food service for the Garden Grove Unified School District.

“It’s an awesome responsibility, and something we take very seriously,” she said. “We want to be part of educating kids.”

Each day, Papilli and her staff of 360 mostly part-time workers serve 29,000 lunches and 9,000 breakfasts at 68 schools.

Papilli, who has a budget of about $14 million, expects to serve about 3.6 million cartons of milk, 300,000 pounds of beef, 2.8 million chicken nuggets and hundreds of thousands of cookies this year.

A major part of keeping prices low, Papilli said, is giving children foods they like. That way, less food is wasted and more students are likely to flock to the cafeteria. When more students buy their meals in the cafeteria, cost per lunch drops because labor costs stay the same no matter how many meals are served.

“If I have a nice, nutritious broccoli casserole, and the students come and toss it straight away, it has done them no good,” she said. “We don’t want to be feeding the trash can.”

So in addition to shopping, cooking and planning, Papilli and her staff conduct exhaustive taste tests on new dishes.

Last spring, for example, she toted cartons of barbecued chicken drumsticks to several elementary schools for a special treat. In exchange, students filled out cards evaluating the snack. It was a hit and will be appearing this fall.

“There’s a negative perception of school lunch,” she said. “If you say that, you need to come to my school and see what we can do.”

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Let’s Do Lunch

Lunch prices are inching upward this year in six Orange County districts. The cost of a school lunch ranges from $1 in Santa Ana to $2.50 in Fullerton.

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Price District Increase? Elem. Jr. HS HS ELEMENTARY DISTRICTS Anaheim City No $1.60 $1.90 -- Buena Park $0.25 $1.50 $1.75 -- Centralia No N/A -- -- Cypress No $1.75 -- -- Fountain Valley No $1.75 $1.85 -- Fullerton No $1.50 $1.75 -- Huntington Beach City No $1.75 $1.75 -- La Habra City No $1.25 $1.50 -- Magnolia No $1.50 -- -- Ocean View No $1.50 N/A -- Savanna No $1.35 -- -- Westminster No $1.25 N/A -- HIGH SCHOOL Anaheim Union No -- N/A N/A Fullerton Joint Union $0.25 -- -- $2.50 Huntington Beach Union Yes -- -- * UNIFIED DISTRICTS Brea-Olinda No $1.60 $1.90 $1.90 Capistrano No $1.75 N/A N/A Garden Grove Yes $1.00 $1.25 $1.25 Irvine No $2.00 $2.25 $2.25 Laguna Beach $0.25 $2.25 $2.25 $2.25 Los Alamitos No $1.75 $2.00 $2.00 Newport-Mesa No $1.75 $2.00 $2.00 Orange No $1.50 $1.75 $1.75 Placentia-Yorba Linda No $1.75 $2.00 $2.00 Saddleback Valley No $1.60 $1.60 $2.00 Santa Ana No $1.00 $1.00 $1.00 Tustin Yes $1.75 $2.00 $2.00 N/A = Not Available; -- = Not Applicable; *Prices increased on some items Sources: Districts listed

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