District closes cafeterias to save money

When middle school students return to school after summer break, there will be one major thing missing: the cafeterias.

School District 43, in British Columbia, is closing its 13 middle school cafeterias as part of an effort to balance its 2014-15 school year budget. This is the second year in a row the district has made cost cuts. Last year, the district slashed $12.1 million from its budget after ending the 2012-13 school year with a $10 million deficit.

The district is hoping to save approximately $145,000 from cafeteria closings. The district plans to use the money saved by the shuttering for use in educational purposes.

“We can’t afford to run middle school cafeterias anymore,” says School District 43’s Assistant Secretary-Treasurer Chris Nicolls. “All middle school cafeterias will be closing by June 30.”

Although the cafeterias will be closing, the district is looking to supplement food vending machines in middle schools, with hopes of being able to bring in more machines with a wider variety of food choices. Besides the vending machines, middle school students won’t have any other food options on school premises, leaving parents and students in charge of packing lunches every day.

The district’s secondary schools will continue to offer food options and shouldn’t see any major changes, according to Nicolls.

“We are taking a look at pricing [in secondary schools] and may push prices up,” Nicolls says. “The difficulty [we have had] is subsidizing cafeterias in middle and secondary schools. We would like to make the secondary schools more self sufficient and eliminate the subsidy we have had to supply.”

Cafeteria closings aren’t the only big changes that will be taking place during next school year. The district also cut some job positions, such as teachers, bus drivers and foodservice workers, to balance the overall operation budget. The district also is eliminating bus services for non-special needs students due to the $13.4-million deficit that it was facing for the upcoming year.

Notices were sent to parents about the removal of buses. Within that notice, a mention of the cafeteria closing was included. Nicolls says that so far, reaction of the cafeteria closing from parents and students has been muted.

“We don’t have any plans on going back and reopening middle school cafeterias in the future at this time,” Nicolls states.