When most El Paso students and educators are taking their first steps out of bed in the morning, hundreds of school cafeteria employees are hard at work by 6 a.m. before the sun peeks over the horizon.
On the Westside, Mesita Elementary School cafeteria manager David Daniels’ team is making breakfast sandwiches for over 500 students and delivering them to classrooms before the school day starts.
Across town in far East El Paso, cafeteria manager Miriam Castañeda and her staff are making lunches of chicken salad, jalapeño pepperoni pizza and Doritos pie for nearly 2,000 students at Eastlake Middle and Col. Ben Narbuth Elementary schools.
The teams led by Daniels and Castañeda are just a fraction of workers across the borderland dedicated to preparing meals for students in accordance with U.S. Department of Agriculture standards. The meals must follow new USDA nutrition guidelines that starting this school year incrementally reduce added sugars and sodium levels.
As elementary school students walk into class, they are greeted by coolers filled with milk, burritos and other breakfast options that change daily, while middle and high schoolers can get a morning meal from the cafeteria before classes start.
By the time students finish breakfast, cafeteria staff are chopping fruit, portioning fries and preparing lunch for an onslaught of hungry children who will march through their doors in just a few hours.
“It’s a privilege, not just because you’re working with kids, but you’re providing them with the nutrition needs that they require each day,” Daniels said as he set up the lunch line for the first round of second graders scheduled to eat.
“Ponemos todo nuestro esfuerzo para que ellos obtengan ese plato de comida completo para que estudien de la mejor manera, porque si no tienen de comer muchas veces, no piensan bien,” Castañeda said. “We put all our effort into making sure they get that full plate of food so they can study in the best way, because if they don’t have something to eat, many times, they can’t think clearly.”
After serving, cleaning and prepping for the next day, most school cafeteria employees go home by 2:30 p.m. – ready to do it all over again the next day.
Under USDA guidelines, by fall 2027, schools will need to limit added sugars in their meals to 10% of the weekly calories provided, and reduce sodium levels by 15% for school lunches and 10% for breakfast.
Besides the new restrictions, school lunches must follow existing nutrition guidelines, including offering fruits and vegetables at every meal and offering unflavored milk. Bread, pasta and other wheat products must also contain at least 50% whole grain, including childhood staples such as chicken nuggets and corn dogs.
“The food that we offer in our kitchens has to be very specific, it’s not like anything you would get at Walmart or McDonald’s or anywhere. It’s specifically for our program,” said Shelley Chenausky, director of the Socorro Independent School District’s Child Nutrition Services.
“We have to be low sodium, low sugar, high fiber, high protein and provide the nutrients that the kids need,” said Laura Eggemeyer, assistant director of the El Paso Independent School District’s Food and Nutrition Services.
Sitting in the cafeteria excitedly chatting with friends, eating corn dogs and fresh fruit, students at Mesita Elementary School barely noticed the changes. They said pizza and hamburgers are their favorite school lunches.
Some parents El Paso Matters spoke to were not aware of the changes to school lunch nutrition standards and raised concerns that some food options may be unhealthy.
“When my son gets home once in a while, he’ll have to go to the bathroom multiple times from a stomachache from the food,” said Shaniqua Shaw, whose son attends Tierra Del Sol Elementary School in the Ysleta Independent School District. “I think if they added more protein and vegetables to their meals and sugar-free items to their lunches, it would be better.”
Some high school students who ventured off campus during their lunch break said they would like a wider variety of options. Others said they don’t like the food offered at their schools as much as from nearby fast-food restaurants.
“It’s OK. Most of the ones they have are kind of bad,” said Daniel, a Coronado High School sophomore who didn’t want to give his full name. Across town, Sophia, a Montwood High School student, said, “It’s cheaper, but not that good. I like coming out better.”
Eggemeyer admitted that while it is sometimes a struggle to get students to eat cafeteria food, it’s worth helping them build healthier lifelong habits.
“It sometimes takes a child eight to 10 times of seeing a food until they become familiar with it and they accept to try it,” Eggemeyer said. “Maybe at first they only ate half of the carrot and they threw away three. But, by the time they get in high school, they’re eating all their carrots and celery, and all their calabasitas. They’re eating a variety of foods.”
EPISD and SISD schools give students three to five meal options every day, depending on their grade level.
Meeting a need
While opinions of school cafeteria food are mixed, the meals may be the only nutritious food some children get in a day.
One in five, or about 50,700, children in El Paso County faced food insecurity in 2023 — meaning they did not have enough to eat and didn’t know where their next meal would come from, according to Feeding America, a nonprofit that operates a national network of food banks.
An estimated 78% of El Paso children lived with families who qualified for federal nutrition programs that provide free or discounted lunches to children below a certain income level.
“It’s kind of a hidden problem. People don’t always realize who has food at home and who doesn’t,” said EPISD Food and Nutrition Services Supervisor Adrian Kamath. “Our managers sometimes know who is really struggling and who goes home without eating much for the whole weekend.”
To meet these students’ needs, some campuses offer free breakfast in class at the start of the day and after-school supper so they can eat before going home.
Planning school lunches for the year
School districts begin planning and designing their menus long before students head out for the first day of class.
Chenausky and Eggemeyer said the process starts by forming an advisory committee of registered dietitians, parents and employees who give recommendations on what should be in the district’s lunch menus.
Once they have an idea of the type of food they want to serve, the districts work with suppliers that specialize in following the USDA’s school nutritional guidelines to get samples for students to try.
With samples in hand, child nutrition staff go to cafeterias and classrooms throughout their district to survey students and find out which mashed potatoes and spaghetti recipes taste best.
By the summer, they will use those student responses to design a menu and order the food they need for the following school year.
Chenausky said staff try to offer trendy new foods, such as birria tacos, and aim to use sustainable ingredients.
“We try to use local and regional suppliers whenever possible. We try to source fresh produce, dairy and meat products locally, to reduce our environmental footprint, and help support the community,” Chenausky added.
Eggemeyer said EPISD staff has been working on a ramen bowl recipe they hope to implement in the future.
“We haven’t done it yet because we have to find the right noodles that are whole grain,” Eggemeyer said. “It’s kind of hard to find them with good quality that don’t break apart because they’re different than the regular noodles.”
Paying for school lunches
While some El Paso students pay for their own school lunches, the vast majority are funded by the federal government under the National School Lunch Program.
Under the program, students can apply to get free or reduced cost lunch based on their family’s income.
While the USDA recently increased the reimbursements schools get for every lunch they serve, the department in March announced it cut a $660 million Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, used by school districts to purchase food from nearby farms.
Every summer, schools across Texas set their budgets for the year by estimating the cost of serving students and funding based on enrollment in the National School Lunch Program.
El Paso’s three largest school districts approved combined budgets worth $98 million for child nutrition services, about $93 million of which came from the federal government.
Under the National School Lunch Program, districts receive between 44 cents to $4.60 in reimbursements for every lunch distributed, depending on whether the students qualify for free or reduced-cost meals. For breakfast, districts receive between 40 cents to $2.94, and up to $1.26 for after-school meals.
Many El Paso schools offer free meals to all their students without collecting applications or income information under the Community Eligibility Provision. The provision allows schools to serve free breakfast and lunch if at least 25% of their students are identified as low income.
Over 180 schools across El Paso County qualify for the provision, according to the Food Research Action Center, a nonprofit focused on relieving poverty related hunger in the United States
With so many students relying on school lunches to stay full, Chenausky said most school cafeteria employees know their job plays a valuable part in children’s education.
“Without them, kids can’t think. Kids need good nutrition in order to be successful in the classroom, so they’re not thinking about tummies, they’re actually thinking about the work that’s in front of them,” she said.
Daniels said the work his staff does, standing on their feet all day, can be tiring, but is worth it in the end.
“Even though we work in educational support, you can impact their future at any moment. You’re feeding them, you’re smiling, even just something as, ‘How are you doing today, mija?’” Daniels said.
HOW TO APPLY FOR FREE, REDUCED LUNCH
Students not attending a school that offers free lunch under the Community Eligibility Provision can apply for reduced or no cost lunches.
Apply here at the EPISD, SISD and YISD websites.
All three districts offer free breakfast in the classroom to elementary school students.
The post Breakfast burritos to birria tacos: Behind the scenes of El Paso school cafeterias amid new USDA guidelines appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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