A president’s perspective

Earlier this year at an educational summit I had the opportunity to spend some time getting to know Leah Schmidt, director of nutrition services at Hickman Mills C-1 School District, in Kansas City, Mo. Schmidt was also the president of the School Nutrition Association (SNA) at the time. Following Schmidt’s passing of her president’s duties, I spoke with her about the challenges she faced as president during a tumultuous year in child nutrition. The following are excerpts from our conversation:

On SNA’s goal: “We really did try to take the high road. The whole time we never said anything bad about anybody, even though we’ve been accused of gutting, rolling back and serving junk food. That’s just not the case. Even as recent as last month, [the first lady said this about our motives,] ‘if they want junk food, let’s give them junk food,’ and that is not our message. I wish somebody would stop putting that spin on it.

The SNA executive team has tried really hard to take the high road. We have stated facts only and have not gotten personal. The past presidents’ letter [when 19 past presidents disagreed with the flexibilities SNA was asking for] was disappointing, but that is all we have said. We respect them as members and as past leaders. We have also maintained respect for the first lady, and I have said more than once that we do appreciate that she has raised the profile of school nutrition programs. The bottom line on this is that we are just trying to advocate for our members so that they can be successful in their programs and serve healthful meals to their students that they will eat.”

On her biggest disappointment: “SNA was disinvited as a partner in Chefs Move to Schools and we were also told that we had to remove the link to Let’s Move! from our website as we were no longer considered a partner. The Let’s Move! request was probably the saddest day for me personally.”  

On feedback she received from district members of SNA: I’ve had over 100 emails, unsolicited, from people saying ‘thank you for getting our message out.’ I’ve only had three emails questioning, ‘why are you doing this.’ I’ve had a past president say, ‘I’m not going to apologize for being successful,’ but her demographics were such that it was a lot easier for her than a lot of districts. I’m not going to apologize for being successful either. It’s a lot of work. But I am very high free and reduced and that’s a demographic that’s going to be more successful more easily. I have the SNA resources available. But if you’re in a district that’s very small and rural, a lot of times you don’t have time to go out and look for those resources.”

On misinformation in the media: “It’s hard with all this critical spin on junk food and continuing to call what we want to do as going back to junk food, because that is not our want or what we are trying to do at all. [The White House and the first lady] have the audience. She talks and people hear her. She’s on the nightly news every time she speaks. That’s not the case with us.”

On the waiver currently in the House Appropriations Bill: “Quite frankly, the hardship waiver was not SNA’s idea, but in order to remain in the conversation we agreed to support it. It is also pretty likely that any district that would be eligible would be one that might be considering opting out [of the National School Lunch Program] anyway and some are.”

On the best-case scenario for the next six months: “We can continue with the dialogue. It would be really nice if we could have some definitive answers as far as the sodium. We just want to be able to serve meals that kids will eat. They are offering technical support. I don’t know how easy it is for a foodservice director in a very affluent district who has been doing just fine and is now struggling because it’s the paid lunches that are down to ask for support. I don’t think it’s the technical support that’s going to help these people. It’s flexibility.”