The serve thousands of meals each day and are a key component in the effort to support a healthy learning environment for all KCS students.  Today, the Saturday Six shines a spotlight on the KCS School Nutrition Services (SNS)!

KCS School Nutrition works hard serve a wide range healthy foods so that students are primed and ready to learn.  While meeting USDA regulations (including offering lower sodium and saturated fat food items), the menus offer daily fresh fruits and vegetables and 100% whole grain breads and starches.  In addition, all snacks and beverages offered are USDA smart snack compliant.  All the while, food offerings are sought and selected to best appeal to student taste and satisfaction.  Items such as the middle and high school daily garden fresh salad bar provide healthy food alternatives,  and the alternative breakfast program gives students the opportunity to eat the most important meal of the day after the bell rings.

Let’s look at six things you may not know about the KCS School Nutrition program!

1. Kingsport SNS staff serves more than 5,000 meals each day.  Over the course of a school year, that totals approximately 1 million meals served.  Wow!
2. At only $1.5o for breakfast and $2.25 (elementary) or $2.50 (middle & high) for lunch for students, a KCS school meal is one of the best deals in town!
3. As great as those prices are, starting in 2016, KCS is participating in a new Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program.  This program allows high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students.  CEP is part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) and supports students at Jackson Elementary School, Johnson Elementary School, Kennedy Elementary School, Lincoln Elementary School, Roosevelt Elementary School and Sevier Middle School.
4. Did you know that through an innovative online portal, parents can place funds in their child’s meal account electronically?  Using the MyPaymentsPlus program, families can avoid having to send cash or check with their child to school for meal purchases.  Click here to find out more about this online option.
5. Speaking of online, the KCS website keeps an up-to-date listing of breakfast and lunch menu calendars.  You’ll never again wonder what’s for lunch at school!  Click here to view the complete meal menus.
6. The SNS program is completely self-supporting.  Through the purchase of food items and federal meal reimbursements, SNS expenses are funded without the use of KCS general purpose funding.

And here is a bonus fact… KCS cafeterias are inspected twice each year by the Tennessee Department of Health.  Did you know that during the past year, all KCS cafeterias received a perfect score of 100 on a health inspection?  That’s pretty impressive!

The next time you have the opportunity, have a meal in a KCS school cafeteria.  You’ll be glad you did!