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.

Breakfast has gone downhill a lot. They replaced the separate bagels and cream cheese with a bagel-like roll prefilled with super sweet strawberry cream cheese. As a teacher, I’ve tried to eat it myself a few times when I skipped breakfast and it gave me diarrhea.

When school starts in fall, anyone knows how do kids buy their lunch? Line up during lunchtime or pre-order from their home classroom? Lunch is only 30 min, and I am concerned that there won't be time to buy lunch and eat. And, are classroom going to sit together to eat lunch, or kids sit randomly? Well, even mask is not required, but we are still during covid time. I wonder what will be the policy in the fall.

Mine is a rising 1st grader, and he got free lunch or sometimes pack lunch. He has not bought any lunch yet, and he probably does not know how to.

I got email that parents can put money into account to pay school fees, is that also for pay lunch fee?

My kids usually buy lunch once or twice a week. They like the pizza, chicken nuggets, and tacos. Other than that, they are not fans of the school lunch.

You get a monthly menu so you can choose which days to get lunch. Thats what we did. There were some shortage and replacements last year because it was free for all so many more kids got school lunch.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never call the food even healthyish. Sorry. It's pretty gross. It's gotten worse.

Agree, it’s pretty bad. Especially since they went ‘free meals for all’ the past two years. Hopefully, it gets better now that we will have to pay again.

My kids aren’t super picky eaters, but they prefer to just take lunch over buying.

Breakfast is particularly bad, IMO. But lunch isn’t that great either. You’ll get a monthly menu so you can see what is being served. Honestly, most kids will take one item and just throw the rest of her meal away.

Agree about the breakfast- and it’s mostly sugary crap! Why does anyone think offering young kids chocolate milk, apple juice, and some sort of junky pastry, and then expecting them to sit still, is a good idea?? It just really boggles my mind.

Yeah, just because you call it a “whole grain” cinnamon roll doesn’t make it a good breakfast.

Mine was really excited about it in kindergarten, but after a few months of buying lunch once or twice a week, finally gave up and never bought again. (But I did discover she’d been buying ice creams after lunch when I started getting notices that her account was getting low, even though she hadn’t bought lunch in years! I’d left the funds there, just in case she or a friend forgot their lunch one day.)

I think the last straw was when her one remaining favorite, the pancakes and yogurt lunch, switched to a super-sugary, neon pink Trix yogurt that even a five year old could see was a chemical-laden sugar bomb.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never call the food even healthyish. Sorry. It's pretty gross. It's gotten worse.

Agree, it’s pretty bad. Especially since they went ‘free meals for all’ the past two years. Hopefully, it gets better now that we will have to pay again.

My kids aren’t super picky eaters, but they prefer to just take lunch over buying.

Breakfast is particularly bad, IMO. But lunch isn’t that great either. You’ll get a monthly menu so you can see what is being served. Honestly, most kids will take one item and just throw the rest of her meal away.

Agree about the breakfast- and it’s mostly sugary crap! Why does anyone think offering young kids chocolate milk, apple juice, and some sort of junky pastry, and then expecting them to sit still, is a good idea?? It just really boggles my mind.

Anonymous wrote:I would never call the food even healthyish. Sorry. It's pretty gross. It's gotten worse.

Agree, it’s pretty bad. Especially since they went ‘free meals for all’ the past two years. Hopefully, it gets better now that we will have to pay again.

My kids aren’t super picky eaters, but they prefer to just take lunch over buying.

Breakfast is particularly bad, IMO. But lunch isn’t that great either. You’ll get a monthly menu so you can see what is being served. Honestly, most kids will take one item and just throw the rest of her meal away.

The pandemic seems to have made the school food less reliable in terms of knowing what will be available on any given day. If your child only likes certain meals, that can be problematic. My child used to like to get school lunch but once the options were reduced and the menu became less predictable we switched to only sending lunch from home. Not sure what it will be like this year.

Anonymous wrote:My DS likes buying lunch. I think it's the variety. Quality is better than what the stereotypes would have you believe, but it's not amazing like in some other countries. I print out the menu for the month and put it on the fridge, and it's up to DS to tell us he doesn't like something and wants a packed lunch.

+1

My DS likes buying lunch. I think it's the variety. Quality is better than what the stereotypes would have you believe, but it's not amazing like in some other countries. I print out the menu for the month and put it on the fridge, and it's up to DS to tell us he doesn't like something and wants a packed lunch.

I would never call the food even healthyish. Sorry. It's pretty gross. It's gotten worse.

It's a mix, some kids buy and some bring from home. We do not qualify for the free lunch, so we pay for it. My kids really like a hot meal in the middle of the day, also they can be lazy about packing lunch.
As far as nutrition, I would says it's good enough. They list the nutritional information for everything served that month here, although it looks like they haven't posted it for the first week of school yet.
https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/food-and-nutrition/menus/

My ds will star k this fall and he qualified for free meals. He is my first to go go us public school (I’m not from us) so I do not have experience with it. Are the meals healthyish? I was planning to pack his lunch as he is a picky but healthy eater. But I also like the option of not packing the lunch. Do kids predominately eat school food or bring it from home?