Mcps elementary school breakfasts and lunches

[Anonymous]

The lunches are garbage. Majority of the kids toss it in the trash. Doubt their parents know they're not eating lunch.

[Anonymous]

When mine was in K I used to go in sometimes and have lunch with my kid. This was pre Covid. I saw it first hand and it wasn’t great. The menu makes it sound good but the reality is different. The yogurt with blueberries sounds healthy but was a Blueberry flavored Trix yogurt full of artificial colors and flavors. I let my kid buy on Fridays because that was pizza day. Because of Covid she’s now at private and buys once a week still but the food quality is much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The lunches are garbage. Majority of the kids toss it in the trash. Doubt their parents know they're not eating lunch.

This. Kids pick out the one item they want and the rest goes in the trash. Especially last year, when it was free for everyone. The lunches were even worse. And the kids didn’t have to pay, so they would take the entire lunch even if they o ou wanted to actually eat one thing.

The amount of thrown-away food is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the lunches used to be better. I work for MCPS and would occasionally buy a student lunch when I forgot mine, and it wasn't too bad, with some days being better then others but definitely edible. With the free food the past 2 years, the quality has taken a nose dive. My 5 year old was initially excited about getting lunch but a month or two in she insisted I pack her lunch. Also, the supply chain left the menu very unreliable. There was typically only 1 choice and many times it was "managers choice". The breakfast was super junky. My DD loved getting the brownies on Fridays and the cinnamon rolls.

I will get better when they can charge again. Free lunches were limited to the gov subsidy. MCPS spent more before,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the lunches used to be better. I work for MCPS and would occasionally buy a student lunch when I forgot mine, and it wasn't too bad, with some days being better then others but definitely edible. With the free food the past 2 years, the quality has taken a nose dive. My 5 year old was initially excited about getting lunch but a month or two in she insisted I pack her lunch. Also, the supply chain left the menu very unreliable. There was typically only 1 choice and many times it was "managers choice". The breakfast was super junky. My DD loved getting the brownies on Fridays and the cinnamon rolls.

I will get better when they can charge again. Free lunches were limited to the gov subsidy. MCPS spent more before,

Doubt it. My older kid started kindergarten in fall of 2019, so before lunches were free, and the menu was appalling. The "healthy" options were things like vanilla yogurt with granola - basically a sugar bomb even if you call it yogurt. There were occasional days when they seemed to offer a turkey sandwich or something basic like that, but mostly it was sugary yogurts, cinnamon buns, pancakes - yes, for lunch - or highly processed like hot dog, pizza, chicken fingers. I let him buy pizza once or twice a month and sent a lunch the rest of the time. This past year there were food issues so even when he wanted to buy the pizza, they were out sometimes, so we sent lunch the entire year except on maybe one occasion. Plan to do the same this year with him and my second kid who is entering kindergarten.

I am not completely anti-sugar, my kids get a small dessert every night and they eat plenty of crap at after care, but I am not willing to compound that by having them eat sugar for lunches too. Or breakfast - the main reason we adjusted our schedules to avoid before care is because all the kids do there is eat yet another sugar-laden meal. If you can't afford to send lunch then it is what it is, or if your kid is guaranteed to pick something reasonable like apple and peanut butter from all the more sugary choices, then it's more doable. If you have a choice, though, you should give serious thought to packing lunch at least half the week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher I have always found the food gross. Super sweet yogurt. pancakes and syrup all over my desks since the kids think it is ok to smear on the tables and then use a pancake to wipe it up before putting in their mouths. Arguments with kids about cleaning up or not throwing food/drinks. Kids farting in class during or after they eat. Kids stealing extra food so that late arrivals have nothing to eat. Just a huge sense of entitlement from some kids who have had free food all their life and accept no responsibility.

I basically refuse to work in schools where teachers have have students eat in their rooms. Too stressful to deal with all.

It’s not a free food all their lives thing. A few years ago, I taught at a very expensive camp for gifted and talented kids. They left the cafeteria a disaster every day.

I find rich kids to be way more entitled than low income kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the lunches used to be better. I work for MCPS and would occasionally buy a student lunch when I forgot mine, and it wasn't too bad, with some days being better then others but definitely edible. With the free food the past 2 years, the quality has taken a nose dive. My 5 year old was initially excited about getting lunch but a month or two in she insisted I pack her lunch. Also, the supply chain left the menu very unreliable. There was typically only 1 choice and many times it was "managers choice". The breakfast was super junky. My DD loved getting the brownies on Fridays and the cinnamon rolls.

Agree with this. The ‘manager’s choice’ was pretty fun. And the last two years of free meals definitely negatively affected the quality of food.

My kids prefer to pack lunch, which is fine with me as they are motivated to help pack it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like the lunches used to be better. I work for MCPS and would occasionally buy a student lunch when I forgot mine, and it wasn't too bad, with some days being better then others but definitely edible. With the free food the past 2 years, the quality has taken a nose dive. My 5 year old was initially excited about getting lunch but a month or two in she insisted I pack her lunch. Also, the supply chain left the menu very unreliable. There was typically only 1 choice and many times it was "managers choice". The breakfast was super junky. My DD loved getting the brownies on Fridays and the cinnamon rolls.

I will get better when they can charge again. Free lunches were limited to the gov subsidy. MCPS spent more before,

The menu looks exactly the same as last year.