District to hire food services company, considers summer school ‘live’

By J. NOEL ESPINOZA

Lunch Lady
Seen is an SBCISD food service employee distributing food bags to residents during the COVID-19 lockdown. (Photo by David Lopez)

SAN BENITO—In a finance committee meeting on Tuesday, the San Benito Consolidated Independent School District reviewed and discussed a proposal to hire a food service management company to run the school district’s food services.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Nate Carman said three of four companies completed the bidding process, and all the evaluators recommended the board go with FSC as the food service management company.

He said some of the key elements they were looking at through FSC were fruits and salads bar.

“The fresh (man) approach with FSC, I think, draws a lot of the score to hire with them,” Carman said. “Additionally, each of the companies who bid provided what they call a guarantee.”

He said the condition to go into a contract with FSC is the protection that “they believe that we can operate in the black just over $1 million next year.”

Carman said FSC should know that the school district has been operating in the black in an average of $429,000 for the past five years.

In addition, Carman said FSC is also running food services at Los Fresnos ISD when SBCISD Board of Trustees President Orlando Lopez asked about it.

When board member Angel Mendez asked why there were drastic changes to food services after so many years under former director Jana Kay Landrum, who recently passed away, Carman said they were unable to find someone with such extensive experience on food services.

Despite the hiring of a food service management company, Carman said all employees would remain in the district’s payroll.

“Our employees are our employees,” he said. “They are providing up to five positions, two chefs, an operations director, a nutritionist, and dietitian.”

Summer school
In other issues, Carman said they are currently planning to start summer school July 13, which could run for three weeks Monday through Thursday.

“We have identified four elementary sites, one middle school, and the VMA site,” he said.
Carman said the thought is to have smaller classes or groups.

“We’re looking at three different models,” he said. “Depending on the situation of the pandemic.”

The first choice, Carman said, is to go “full live,” which will be option A while option B is a hybrid model, where if they have 12 students in a class, six will attend Monday and Wednesday, and the other six attend Tuesday and Thursday, to maximize space. The less desirable, option C, is to go “fully remote” as they are currently doing now.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited for length. To read the full story, click here or make sure to grab a copy of the May 8–14, 2020 issue of the NEWS.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.sbnewspaper.com/2020/05/07/district-to-hire-food-services-company-considers-summer-school-live/

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