Better watch out they are going to treat the food service workers the same as they treated the 26 outsourced custodians. The food service workers need to prepare and save their pennies because the school commitee does not care about you.

Who is next on the outsource list ??? paras ?? teachers??

Well maybe if you take the proceeds from the sale of Wickford EL and forget the transformation of Davisville EL into the School Adminstrative Offices, you might have plenty of money to support the school district's cafeteria services and the quality of food you serve (because you, Richard, don't like the State Programs) might improve. It would seem that your over charging as it is, since four chicken nuggets or a slab of pizza and a milk are costing parents $2.50 per day.

If the ESP Union doesn't want to see more of it's public sector workers get outsourced maybe they should stop playing games (like the ill-advised "strike" earlier in the school year) and get serious about compromising on a contract with the school committee.

As it stands now, I say outsource the food service.

The lunch tray in this picture is not the tray our school children eat from. Every day they are served on Styrofoam trays, which are then tossed. This is a costly cycle of trays being purchased, used once and then hauled to the landfill. Reusable trays in the long run are healthier for our kids, our school budget and our landfill. Can we get rid of the Styrofoam trays?

maybe they should stop feeding the kids the same unhealthy crap, the portions get smaller and prices get higher. Those meals never filled anyone i knew

It's puzzling to me why, in an era where we're requiring families to raise money so their kids can play some sports, we continue to be the only district to subsidize the food program. If 30 other districts are proving it can be done more cheaply with relatively decent quality, why are we clinging to the idea of our own, more expensive program? It's not like kids are raving about the quality of the food; at least they're not showing up at meetings to rave. When the price went up, apparently fewer meals were sold. Of course it also puzzles me why a town where the criminal action of the week can be "Lost Wallet Found" pays for 70 cops. If we continue to support sacred cows instead of looking at what we really need, we taxpayers will continue to pay 3 times as much in taxes as Jamestown and twice as much as Narragansett.

Whoever cooks and serves the food in the NKSD, I hope the school committee continues to allow special needs students to intern in the kitchen. The payoff in money alone for our society if just one trained special needs person gets employed in the food service industry for life is tremendous. Instead of receiving $1000 per month SSI disability money, which would amount to over $300,000 over 30 years, if that person worked for minimum wage in the food service business they would pay taxes on the exact same amount and save us taxpayers money. Sometimes the benefits financially are not always apparent unless you have all the facts and think it through. Currently the workers in the school kitchen provide one of the few vocational training opportunities for special needs students at the high school and if that opportunity is lost with an out-sourced contract then I can assure you're going to hear about it from me, a taxpayer, parent, and teacher.

The privatizing of food services is ridiculously overdue. There is simply not the money to continue as we've been doing. As for the School Committee caring - their job is to care about the quality of EDUCATION offered our students, and every available dollar should be allocated in that direction of the classroom. The SC's obligation is to students rather than to cafeteria workers (or, for that matter, custodians). We cannot afford to continue to operate food services at a loss when this is not in the least necessary, given privatization and/or state options.

Read between the lines people. The answer to why food services has not been outsourced lies within this article. SC members have their own private agendas. Figure it out. Once the SC finds a way to keep the vocational program without the current cafeteria workers being involved, rest assured they will be gone, just like the janitors. Part-Time employees, had full health insurance benefits for years, are operating at a loss, and every other district outsources. Now you tell me why they still have jobs and the janitors don't?

How is inclusion of making food for some special students a "private agenda". It just seems like this SC cant please ANYONE, be it the ones who want to outsource like every other district has, or the ones who want to keep losing $150 thousand dollars a year to keep a few union employees getting paid. Wow! I'd love to see these people pay way more to have anything done on their houses or get their car fixed only by union workers! It would not happen.

There's no secret why the SC has thus far resisted outsourcing food service. They've said repeatedly over the past 2 years at meetings that they were giving the head of food services, who had on her own initiative come up with several innovative ways of savings money and raising revenues for the program, an opportunity to make that work. It has not produced the savings they had hoped, therefore they're moving forward with outsourcing. Besides they saved far more money outsourcing janitorial than they would have saved if they outsourced foodservice first. When they do outsource it, they said on Tuesday night that they will keep the special needs intern program intact and will mandate that the new company keep the current employees. The conspiracy talk is hogwash.

Like with the custodians at a pay cut, with loss of sick time, vacation time, and no job security.

Oh Please Meane, we all know what you meant, it's your usual pattern of making personal comments. First, the SC can't outsource anything that they haven't first bargained and negotiated. So if they didn't bargain that yet, then they can't do it yet. Although I have no idea if that played into their decision, it's something that might have. Further I heard the entire SC say years ago that food service would probably be the last thing they would outsource, as they felt serving food in house was more important to them than keeping other functions in house. Guess what, that's their call, that's why they are elected officials, they get to make those decisions. You would rather believe some conspiracy and make some personal attacks as usual, rather then believe that amount of money saved may have influenced the order of things, (a very common sense consideration it seems to me). Anyway, does it really matter if one is done 6 months prior to the other? Any excuse to make a thinly veiled attack that doesn't even make sense.

Has anyone concluded as to why there is a reduction in children purchasing lunch? Is it a question of the quality of the food, quantity of the food, cost of the food or just having to pay people to prepare and distribute the food? My understanding is that lunches at the high school cost between $2.50 and $5.00 per person and depending on what you purchase and the selection is quite nutritional, cold lunch vs. hot lunch. As for the lower grades, chicken nuggets, maccaroni, pizza and cheese burgers are a regular staple. There must be a solution, rather than out sourcing. There seems to be a regular pattern developing, taxes continue to go up and the services provided continue to go down. What's next, snow plowing every other storm ? Thanks for the big blue bin.

Jeff thanks for your comment. I can assure you that this subject has been seriously looked into over the past four years. When I first got on the S/C I questioned why the benefits cost more than the wages in this area and it was because the workers received full benefits while working part time. When deciding which items in teh budget could be trimed we need to first look at non-ed items. With every other district using private vendors for food successfully and we are running a deficit yr after yr we needed to make the change. Also please understand that every household in N K is paying to subsidize this program because of this deficit. If it paid its way this would not be on the agenda.