It's the first day of school for freshmen at Perry Hall High School, and cafeteria manager Sue Bussey makes sure the new crop of kids gets a healthy start.
"You get three sides now," she tells youngsters coming through her "Deli Sensations" serving line, one of six in the high school's colorful food court offering everything from pizza and tacos to soft pretzels and tossed salad.
Bussey, an energetic woman with cropped, blond hair and a good summer tan, pushes the fresh fruit and downplays the fries. And she explains that each $1.60 lunch entitles a customer to "five components": a main dish, a drink, plus three sides that can include a tossed salad, fruit and, yes, those fries.
Since Bussey began as a substitute dishwasher at Loch Raven High School in 1981, her job description has changed drastically, not only as she advanced through the ranks, but as the school food-service profession, itself, became a sophisticated and highly regulated business with a more demanding clientele.
Back in the day, kids received lunch tickets; now they carry Nutrition Express debit cards. Bussey and her colleagues used to make lasagna from scratch for hundreds; now it comes pre-prepared.
Once school food service was considered part of the cost of educating students, now it is largely up to cafeterias, which can't depend entirely on government reimbursements to meet their expenses, like any other business.
"A school district is the biggest restaurant in town," says Gaye Lynn MacDonald, president of the American School Food Service Association, a trade organization with more than 55,000 members.
While assuming more responsibilities and learning new skills, food-service workers continue to deliver meals to low-income students through free and reduced-rate breakfast and lunch programs. By law, cafeterias must also accommodate children with allergies, diabetes and others with dietary restrictions.
In the ever-evolving and frenetically paced field of feeding school kids, though, one thing hasn't changed: The human role played by the most empathetic and observant food-service workers.
"They're nurturers," says MacDonald, food-services manager for the public school system in Bellingham, Wash. Lunch is "a spot in a student's day where [nobody] is demanding anything. They are giving them something. That's a very powerful connection with kids."
Even as she and her staff provide full lunches and a la carte items to 1,200 students a day during four cacophonous lunch periods, Bussey trains her eye on students in need. She quickly learned, for example, to recognize hunger. "There's a certain look on a face," she says. "I've seen it here. [It's a look] that says to you, 'If I could just have something to eat.' "
On those occasions, Bussey alerts guidance department staff who then assist the student's family with paperwork necessary to qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
Bussey also remembers how she and other food-service workers helped two Perry Hall High siblings set up their own apartment after leaving a home devastated by drugs. "They're doing extremely well," she says.
Similar tales abound in Feeding Body & Soul: Special Children Who Touched Our Hearts, an ASFSA publication in which veterans tell of children they've befriended, tutored and mentored.
But ASFSA does much more than disseminate feel-good news. Established in 1946, the same year the National School Lunch Program was founded within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the trade organization serves as an advocate for child-nutrition programs in Congress and supports professional development and outreach programs.
"We're no longer cafeteria ladies with hairnets and knots in the middle of our foreheads," says Karen Haghighi, president-elect of the Maryland School Food Service Association and director of nutrition and food services for the Prince George's County public school system. "It's truly a career for people working in food service. The skill level has changed. No longer can we allow people to come in and cook like they cook at home. We have standardized recipe files, inventory control and accountability. Even though school food service is not a profit-making business, we have to support ourselves."
School food-service workers must be trained to comply with a variety of stringent health regulations. Digitally monitoring food temperatures through the preparation, transportation and service process is a constant, adding "another level of complexity" to the job, MacDonald says.
Today's cafeteria staffs also have to be computer-literate to keep track of inventory, communicate with the school system's central office and to conduct nutritional analyses of meals to comply with USDA dietary guidelines, MacDonald says.
In many schools, the grim, institutional cafeterias of yesteryear are being replaced with brightly lighted food courts, some of which feature themes, such as Mustang Galley, at Marley Middle School in Anne Arundel County.
Other trends include "bowl concepts," such as rice bowls topped with stirred-fried vegetables and meats, wrap and pinwheel sandwiches and specialty breads, such as focaccia and flatbread, MacDonald says.
"Maryland tends to be very much in tune with what goes on in the business," says Carol Fettweis, the state's chief of school nutrition programs. "They keep up with what's going on with the competition and run their operations like a business. There are many choices and you have a lot of marketing going on."
Within the state, "there's a lot of variance among school systems in the way they operate their business," Fettweis says. In Montgomery County, for example, lunches are prepared at a huge central facility, then transported to individual schools. In Prince George's County, cafeteria workers prepare lunches in each school kitchen. In Baltimore County, lunches are prepared at central hubs, then trucked to satellite schools in cold carriers and portable warmers.
Because cafeterias compete with Lunchables, vending machines and fast- food franchises, they must appeal to changing tastes with numerous, popular choices. "When I was little, I remember shepherd's pie was my favorite thing," says Kathleen Wilson, director of school food services for Baltimore City. Now, the favorites are pizza and chicken nuggets, she says.
Just because school lunch offerings may resemble the menu at a fast-food spot doesn't mean they are nutritional equals. To cut down on fat, for instance, chicken nuggets may be baked instead of fried. Just the same, there is criticism, including the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's annual school lunch report card, issued last week, which took aim at several large school districts across the country.
"School meals are still fighting the image battle that they are not necessarily a healthy choice for kids," says Kathleen C. Lazor, director of food and nutrition services for the Montgomery County public school system. "Because of eating habits nowadays, they resemble what you might see out in a fast-food restaurant. That doesn't mean they're prepared the same way. That doesn't mean the nutritional composition is the same."
Serving chicken patties or nuggets, tacos and other pre-processed foods also helps to cut labor costs, allowing for a greater selection at each meal and helping to assure food safety.
Occasionally, a school lunch still has that homemade feel. Louise Sharp, a cook at Cockeysville Middle School since 1988, makes gravy and stuffing from scratch for Thanksgiving lunch. To prepare enough, she starts freezing broth for roux and bread for stuffing in September. Such expertise, once required to produce daily meals for hundreds of hungry children, is giving way to more high-tech, less homey skills.
But the most dedicated food-service workers, old and new, continue to share a common goal. At the start of each year, Wilson of the Baltimore City school system reminds employees that when it comes to boosting a child's morale, "sometimes it can be the cafeteria worker that makes the difference."
For Mary Ellen Zagaris, cafeteria manager at Dasher Green elementary and Owen Brown middle schools, the pleasure is all hers: "What's good is I'll get them from kindergarten and see them leave eighth grade and that is so fun."
After 20 years in food services, she often encounters former students who are now grown. "They will see me in the Giant or on the street and say, 'Oh, you're my favorite lunch lady!' I love that aspect of it."