Making the Most of Long -Term Renovation Dollars

Megan Rowe

Regis Balaban is a survivor.

Over much of the past three decades, the executive director of the Cleveland Municipal School District's food and child nutrition services department has witnessed or endured a series of administrations, the introduction of citywide busing, a crumbling infrastructure, declining enrollment, a mid-1990s fiscal crisis and a plunge in the system's academic and financial performance that resulted in the state assigning control of the system to the city's mayor.

Through it all, the energetic and congenial Balaban has made his department selfsufficient, raised meal participation and attracted a loyal team of dedicated managers. Today it would seem that perseverance is about to pay off.

Four years after the mayoral takeover, the 72,000-pupil district today is about to enter a new era as a result of some visionary leadership, revitalized community support and the passage of the first major bond issue in years. That issue will fund much-needed system-wide facility renovations and new construction and will include money to upgrade foodservice facilities that in many cases go back to the early 1900s. (In fact, one school still in service was built in 1894.)

Balaban is the first to acknowledge that much of the big picture credit goes to the focused vision of Cleveland School System CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the dynamic district administrator who was hired in 1998 to revitalize the system. "She has a way of motivating people and getting things accomplished that has given our entire system a new sense of direction," he says. "And her enthusiasm has caused the community to rally behind her."

The school construction bond issue is expected to provide about $1 billion to improve facilities at the district's 121 schools; a portion of that budget has been earmarked to bring aging and often inadequate foodservice facilities up to speed. The mandate from Byrd-Bennett is clear: "Everything that is done within our system has to relate to improving the education of Cleveland's children," Balaban says.

From his perspective, the goal of 100 percent nutrition—getting every pupil to eat breakfast and lunch each day—has been a driving force in the department's efforts, and that focus seems to be paying off. In recent years, test scores and attendance are both up at Cleveland schools, two trends that have coincided with the system's adoption of a Universal Meals Program beginning in 1999.

With over 80 percent of all district students living in households with incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level, the decision to introduce the Universal Meal Program (UMP) was an obvious choice, with clear operational as well as nutritional benefits. Since moving to UMP, the schools have reported fewer nurse visits and fewer complaints of headaches, "and the literature backs this up," says Judy Kaplan, supervisor of nutrition, procurement and marketing.

Like many districts with large numbers of low-income families, "Some kids and families are too proud to say they qualify for a free or reduced-cost meal," Balaban says. But the advent of UMP "has taken away the stigma," he notes. A survey conducted for the district recently by an independent firm reported that nearly half of all parents said their children would not have breakfast if it were not for the Universal Meals Program.

Since the program's introduction, participation in breakfast has risen from 2,700 to 5,500 per day at secondary schools, and the foodservice staff is looking at ways to induce more participation with innovations such as grab-and-go meals like yogurt and cereal or fortified donuts. "It's tough to get high school kids in early to eat," Kaplan says. "But we believe the effort is worth it."

In addition to regular school meals, Balaban's department also maintains a healthy catering service and provides meals to the district's summer school program, an afterschool snack program, various enrichment and child care programs and some non-district site programs.

When is a kitchen not a kitchen?
Serving 28,300 breakfasts and 53,300 lunches each day—often at schools not designed with a real kitchen or cafeteria—is a challenge. In the Cleveland school district, meeting that challenge starts at the district's Central Kitchen Facility, although as it exists today, "It isn't centrally located in the district and it isn't really a kitchen in the normal sense of the word," says Chris Burkhardt, supervisor of operations/POS management.

That's because the original Central Kitchen Facility was converted into what is mostly a storage and distribution center many years ago. Today, all Cleveland elementary schools receive pre-plated meals distributed from the facility, which are then rethermed at each school location in Crown-X ovens. Little or no food production occurs at the elementary schools themselves.

In practice, elementary schools get daily deliveries of pre-plated meals and supplies while secondary schools get weekly deliveries of nonperishable food products, fresh produce and USDA commodities. The Central Kitchen Facility receives about 3,000 cases of product daily, including the pre-plated meals for the elementary schools, commodity goods (some of which come in portion-controlled packs), and produce purchased through the U.S. Department of Defense.

In recent years, the district has moved to direct diversion of commodity product where possible, having commodity items like cheese, peanut butter, ground beef and dry milk shipped directly to processors to reduce handling and transportation costs. Whenever possible, commodities are sent to pre-platers for "pre-cupping," so that when products like apple sauce are received, they are already in individual portion-controlled containers.

Burkhardt also notes that nationally branded products like cereals and prepackaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are listed by brand on the Cleveland menus, as are some produce items like Washington apples. This is another trend he believes will become more common in the future.

At one time, the Central Kitchen was a true kitchen—turning out meals from scratch on an assembly line, then blast freezing them. But with the department running annual deficits of over $1 million, Balaban—who was named foodservice director in 1985— started considering outsourcing options.

The district chose to replace the line with preplated meals, and the switch helped the books balance. With 7,500 square feet of freezers, 5,000 square feet of refrigerated space and 12,000 square feet of dry storage, the facility also houses a quality assurance/food safety testing lab (see sidebar).

Central ordering, like food preparation, has been streamlined over the years. Technology has been implemented carefully, with a primary emphasis on reducing labor costs and improving productivity. Two years ago, the department implemented a POS system throughout all its secondary schools which now includes universal photo identification cards. The department uses Winsnap software to manage inventory and to automate ordering from individual schools. These and other changes have given the district the ability to maintain real-time oversight of day-to-day financials in its operations and have also given it tighter control of purchasing and distribution operations.

The Central Kitchen still does prepare some meals, mostly catering assignments for district and community events. Catering revenue has grown from about $25,000 five years ago to about $236,000 last year. The catering business "serves as an ambassador for us," Balaban says, "but it's also profitable," and he would like to see it expand to include strategically placed grab-and-go style delis and bakeries.

Grappling with an aging infrastructure
Thanks to the bond issue, Cleveland's aging schools now have the funding to work to address some longstanding, basic goals. Making all district facilities "warm, safe and dry" has been the stated primary goal, and foodservice facilities are included among many of the primary areas that need upgrading.

At most of the elementary schools, which were not equipped to serve meals, feeding kids breakfast and lunch can be problematic. The kitchens and serveries at most elementary schools are bare bones operations, equipped with refrigerators, freezers, milk coolers and rethermalization ovens. Seating areas are modest. (In fact, some "kitchens" occupy the corner of a a basement or a former classroom, with a gym doubling as a dining room. In these, young children line up for breakfast each morning at what are often makeshift serving stations where they load up Styrofoam trays with meal components such as boxed cereal, fruit, milk and juice.)

As the renovation of areas like this take place, it is already clear students will be relocated, building by building while construction is ongoing. One of Balaban's goals is to have flexible servery line modules in place so that temporary foodservice facilities can be set up at that time to handle customer traffic wherever it may be, likely with meals cooked off site and delivered to the temporary locations.

Revamping the menu mix
Over the past several years, the department has worked to incorporate new and more healthful menu items into its program, but has been stymied in some ways by the physical characteristics of the school kitchens. The renovations should eliminate many of these obstacles, Balaban believes.

Among other improvements in the menu mix, he foresees more emphasis on eyecatching, individually-wrapped items; additional vegetarian items such as veggie burgers, corn-dogs and burritos; and a greater variety of pre-packaged salads.

"We also will be adding a wider variety of healthful a la carte items, such as sugarfree, flavored waters, baked chips and lowfat yogurt," he says. "Taken together, these menu enhancements will support the district's comprehensive health policy, which targets leading health indicators including weight issues and childhood obesity."

One challenge on the nutrition front is the presence of candy and soda vending machines at many Cleveland schools, placed there under deals struck independently between vending machine companies and individual school principals.

Balaban says a number of schools are locked into long-term contracts with vending companies, but he and Kaplan are pushing to replace these with healthy alternatives. The change isn't likely to happen overnight.

"We're trying to educate teachers, coaches and parents to accept the idea that there are alternatives to pop, like water and juices," Kaplan says.

New equipment and service models
Meanwhile, Balaban notes it will take years to modernize kitchen and servery facilities throughout the district. The master plan encompasses a 10-12 year period, divided into nine segments. Six to 16 school sites will be upgraded in each of them.

The district's $1.5 billion master plan will be funded with a combination of state and local money, with $.68 of every dollar coming from the State, and the remainder provided from district funds.

Before jumping headfirst into the planned renovations, his department is trying out some new menu items, an alternative servery layout and innovative equipment at a new, nontraditional high school located in downtown Cleveland.

SuccessTech Academy, where classes focus on problem solving through technology, was opened last fall. As it is expanded, it will gradually take over a significant part of what was formerly an administrative office building. This year, about 100 ninth graders attend classes there, and for the next three years, an additional grade will be added for a total of about 400 students.

SuccessTech's initially small student population offered an obvious service challenge. But in his typical fashion, Balaban saw it as an opportunity to experiment with some new types of equipment and service models that his department believes will be useful as it moves to renovate primary facilities throughout the district. The Success Tech kitchen and serving areas were shoehorned into two small adjoining rooms, and assembled entirely from mobile kitchen equipment and display cases. These provide entering customers with an efficient service equivalent of a scatter-station food court, albeit without the typical bells and whistles (see sidebar).

Display cases feature laminar air flow technology, to provide better temperature control of fresh product like salads and sandwiches while dramatically improving the ability of schools to merchandise such offerings in more attractive and convenient ways.

The goal "is to increase our operational flexibility in the many different secondary school operations we have to work with," says Balaban.

"I've always envisioned designing and creating kitchen and cafeteria environments that would be attractive to our student population and our school administrative staff," he adds. "This is our golden opportunity, and our objective is to meet the Ohio Schools Facilities Commission guidelines while maximizing the use of our funding.

"As the Master Plan progresses, depending on individual layouts, we can become more creative after the first three or four schools are completed, and that is something we are really looking forward to. It's a great feeling to know we are playing a large role in developing the foodservice environment that the district will have for many years to come."