Federal nutrition standards for school lunches are set to change in August 2025, limiting the amount of added sugars allowed, but Springfield Public Schools isn’t planning on waiting a year to make changes to its menus.
Missouri’s largest school district, with the support of its administration and school board, will enact many of the new guidelines voluntarily for the 2024-25 school year.
“We’re going to be proactive about this next school year,” said Kim Keller, general manager of student nutrition.
The new standards were announced by the United States Department of Agriculture in late April and include:
- Restrictions on added sugars in school lunches will begin in 2025, with full implementation by 2027. Added sugars are the most prevalent component of a typical school breakfast menu.
- We will update limits on added sugars in flavoured milk from 2025. However, flavoured and unflavoured milk will continue to be permitted as they provide essential nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D and potassium.
- By 2027, sodium content will need to be reduced slightly.
“We will be updating our menu in the fall to address some of the concerns around sugar,” Keller said, noting that previous USDA guidelines weren’t as specific: “USDA didn’t have any (standards) on added sugars at all. They had calorie limits, but they didn’t have limits on added sugars.”
The biggest change is for breakfast, where grains, fruits, vegetables and milk were previously offered regularly, and Keller said the guidelines don’t specify what protein, meat or meat substitutes should be offered.
“You’re going to see big changes to product offerings across the board, with higher protein options coming in,” she said.
Keller said many grains are high in protein, but that lean meat options will also be on the rise.
“When people see cereals, they assume they’re just carbohydrates. They don’t know that there’s protein in them. Some grains have as much protein as eggs, but it’s a perception issue,” she says. “So we’re going to change a lot of that and offer more lean meat options for students’ breakfasts.”
Each year, the district serves about 4 million school meals.
The district will remove chocolate milk from its breakfast menu, offering it only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when cereal is not available.
Keller said the milk the school buys is healthier than what most people buy at the grocery store, but the district limits the product to reduce the amount of added sugars in breakfast meals.
“We’re going above and beyond what the USDA requires,” Keller said.
She acknowledged that a balance needs to be struck: The district wants to provide nutritious meals that meet or exceed federal standards, but also offer a variety of options. “At the end of the day, we want to give kids nutritious, tasty meals that they’ll actually eat,” she said.
This spring, as new standards were being considered at the federal level, school districts piloted changes in certain locations for breakfast and lunch.
“We wanted to see what impact it would have on our program,” Keller said.
While it was largely successful, he said, the district saw a slight drop in participation when options with less added sugar were offered. One big change was the removal of chocolate milk from breakfast menus.
In pilot areas with high participation rates, district meal provision decreased by an average of 35 meals per day.
“So 35 people out of 400 people you’re feeding isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things. It’s a very small amount,” she said. “I think over time, the kids will get used to it.”
Kelly Byrne: “Stop waiting for the USDA”
Board member Kelly Byrne began questioning the nutritional value of school lunches in late February, focusing specifically on the amount of added sugar in breakfast meals.
He pointed to federal guidelines and pilot programs while making the case for change at the May 21 meeting.
“The USDA must have been listening to me because they announced that in a year or two they’re going to reduce the amount of sugar allowed in school lunches. I’m glad to hear that, but I don’t think we need USDA’s help in helping us be our best selves,” Byrne said at the meeting May 21. “I don’t think we need mandates from the federal government.”
Byrne said the pilot program showed districts can make changes with existing facilities, staffing and funding.
“We were able to reduce the sugar in our breakfasts,” he says. “They told us some of the menu items and what they were in. I think that was an improvement and everything I had asked for before,” Byrne says. “I wasn’t trying to get all my kids to eat carrots and boiled eggs with every meal. It was a question of can we do better, can we reduce the sugar content, and we showed that we could do it with the limited resources we have.”
His comments came at the end of the meeting, a time when officials could address any topic, but did not include a presentation by Keller or the nutrition services department about plans for the coming year.
“If we can, let’s do it now. Let’s not wait for the USDA,” he said.
Byrne said he wasn’t concerned by the slight drop in participation in the pilot program and questioned why it was the highlighted metric.
“I’m concerned about placing too much emphasis on participation as a reason to do or not do something if you can reduce sugar in your diet,” he said, “and I think it’s objectively true that it’s good for kids.”
Board member Susan Provence, a former Springfield teacher and coach, said she agreed with Byrne’s call for a diet with less added sugar.
“It’s great for kids. I think some kids get excited when they have sugar in the morning,” she said.
Provence said he supports the idea of making the changes before the USDA requests them, but cautioned that a balance needs to be struck.
“A lot of times, we as adults know the answers. We just have to convince kids that we have the answers,” she said. “We don’t want to produce food that’s not acceptable, that kids can’t eat and they’ll go hungry.”
She added that school districts need to offer options that students “prefer and want to eat.”
For many years, the district has contracted with an outside company, Aramark, to manage nutrition services. Typically, nutrition services in any school district have two main sources of funding: federal meal reimbursement and student meal payments.
Byrne said the system that generates revenue based on the number of meals served to students is flawed.
“The more meals they get in the hands of students, the more profit they make. So we’re encouraging them to give meals, but why do I care about this? For one, the amount of food that ends up in the trash. When you encourage them to give meals, what do they do? They naturally try to make it palatable so they accept it,” Byrne said.
“So what do you do? Well, even though you know it’s not good for your kids to be drinking chocolate milk with their honey buns every morning, you still make the sugar content as high as the USDA will allow.”
more:The SPS board voted 4-3 to cut in half the time that board members have to speak on each topic.
At previous board meetings, Keller said the district closely follows U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines for school meals to provide nutritious options for students.
She said foods purchased for school lunches often contain less sugar than similar foods families can buy in the stores.
Byrne said he wants to see less emphasis on meal participation as a way to generate revenue as the district looks to “renegotiate contracts and explore new options.”
Support buying locally grown food
The National School Lunch Program provides free or reduced-price meals to students based on family income criteria. Meals must comply with nutritional standards established in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which is due to be updated.
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service administers the program and reimburses participating schools for the cost of meals they provide to students, money that is used to purchase food and pay staff.
The USDA made the changes based on recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Public schools serve about 30 million meals each school day.
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“We all share the goal of helping children reach their full potential,” said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in a news release April 24. “Like teachers, classrooms, books and computers, nutritious school meals are an essential part of the school environment, and raising school meal standards will help kids be more successful in and out of the classroom.”
The updated standards, although no changes are proposed, would continue to encourage the use of whole grains and support the purchase of locally grown foods.
It also caters to other food preferences, making it easier for schools to offer protein-rich breakfast foods like yogurt, tofu, eggs, nuts and seeds.
