Dora Rivas to leave Dallas ISD

Veteran Executive Director of Child Nutrition Services Dora Rivas is leaving her post with the Dallas ISD to work for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the U.S. military’s largest retailer, reports the Dallas Morning News. As part of her responsibilities with the military, Rivas will also oversee child nutrition programs in Europe and Asia.

Rivas is a much decorated figure in the child nutrition industry. She was named winner of the IFMA Silver Plate Award in K-12 Foodservice in 2005, the same year she joined Dallas ISD, for her work with the Brownsville ISD in Texas, where she implemented the Special Assistance Provision II Program, making it one of the first large districts in the nation to do so.

In 2013, Rivas led Dallas ISD to implementing universal free breakfast and lunch under the National School Lunch Program’s Provision 2, and breakfast in the classroom is scheduled to be implemented in all district schools by the end of the coming school year.

The district, the nation’s 14th largest by enrollment according to FM’s K-12 Power Players listing, has a child nutrition department budget exceeding $100 million. The free/reduced percentage is around 90 percent for the 160,000-plus enrollment, making it one of the nation’s poorest.