Westerville Schools Continue to Meet USDA Nutrition Standards, Meal Price Guidelines

Westerville City Schools will continue to serve school meals that meet the federal nutrition standards, ensuring that meals are healthy, well balanced, and provide students the nutrition they need to succeed at school.

School meals offer students a variety of milk, fruits, vegetables, proteins, and grains; and must meet strict limits on saturated fat and portion size, while also meeting the following standards. 

• Age appropriate calorie limits;
• Larger servings of vegetables and fruits (students must take at least one serving of a fruit or a vegetable);
• A wider variety of vegetables, including dark green and red/orange vegetables, and legumes;
• Fat-free or 1% milk (flavored milk available);
• More whole grains; and
• Less sodium.

“We continue to work on offering Westerville students healthier and tastier choices,” said Kari Dennis, Manager of Food Services & Purchasing.  “In addition to meeting the USDA nutrition standards, we continue to offer locally grown foods, healthy new menu options, student tastings, and nutrition education.  We also have fresh produce bars in all of our school buildings, increasing the daily variety of fresh fruits and vegetables available to our students.” School meals are a great value and a huge convenience for busy families too!  

School Program regulations at 7 CFR 210.14(e) require school food authorities (SFAs) participating in the National School Lunch Program to ensure sufficient funds are provided to the nonprofit school food service account for meals served to students not eligible for free or reduced price meals.  Historically there were two ways to meet this requirement: either through the prices charged for “paid” meals or through other non-Federal sources provided to the nonprofit school food service account.  Per the Fiscal Year 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 115-141) for school year 2019–2020, only a SFA that had a negative balance in the nonprofit school food service account as of January 31, 2019, shall be required to establish a price for paid lunches in accordance with Section 12(p) of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, 42 U.S.C. 1760(p).  In summary, if the SFA had a positive balance in the nonprofit school food service account on January 31, no further action is needed in terms of adjusting school year 2019-2020 paid lunch prices. 

As of January 31, 2019 Westerville City Schools Food Service account has a positive lunch balance and school meal prices for the 2019-2020 school year will remain the same as the 2018-2019 school year (see below).