the extent we could convince the Federal Government to increase its degree of elementary and secondary school revenues, I would agree they ought to increase their assistance for food programs so it would come out the same percentage, but I think that it is necessary for you to convince parents and school board members and teachers, and not just the Members of Congress, on the need for free food. I know there are many motivations. I served on the Agriculture Committee for awhile, and I know the motivation there of providing free food service for people. It is not just to help the nutrition of the people. I also know there is a temptation to think of one's own aspect of education, meaning the food service, and thinking that is the most important of all. But I think we have a long ways to go in providing an adequate education as yet, and healthy functioning illiterates are not going to be much help to the Nation. (The following letter was received from Mr. Bartlett:) Hon. CARL PERKINS, AMERICAN SCHOOL FOOD SERVICE ASSOCIATION, Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Committee on Education and Labor, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR SIR: This is a delayed answer to at least two questions which were asked by members of the Committee on Education and Labor when I presented testimony in favor of H.R. 13452, a Bill to provide for a program of demonstration projects to test and evaluate the effectiveness, nutritional benefits, administrative procedures, and potential costs of a universal food service and nutrition education program for children. As I recall the two questions were as follows: (1) What is the difference in participation rate in the "all free" schools in the pilot study in Memphis before and after the charge for lunches was eliminated? (2) What is the difference in plate waste in the Six-School Project before and after? On the enclosures I am providing answers to these two questions. It is requested that this be included as a part of my testimony at this hearing. Very truly yours, LAWRENCE BARTLETT, Chairman, State Directors Section. (1) Difference between participation rate in the "all free" schools in the pilot study in Memphis before and after: (2) Plate waste before and after: The Area Supervisor with the Tennessee Department of Education who is responsible for supervising the School Food Service Program in Memphis and who has observed these schools very closely is of the opinion that plate waste (that which is discarded by the student) in these six schools is very much less than many of the other schools that she supervises. She also is of the opinion that it certainly is no greater now than it was before the "all free" program was started. The Food Service Director in Memphis has also indicated to me that he feels the plate waste is no more now than before the "all free" program began. My own personal observation in visiting in one of these schools not more than two weeks before presenting my testimony was that plate waste was very nominal. The total plate cost (food-labor-other) in these six schools for April 1971 is tabulated and shown in the following table: Chairman PERKINS. Our next witness is Mrs. Virginia Ball, from St. Paul, Minn., public schools. I want to hear your comments in connection with the pilot program for universal school feeding. We are only talking about lunch, not the breakfast program. STATEMENT OF VIRGINIA H. BALL, DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL FOOD SERVICE, INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 625, ST. PAUL, MINN. Mrs. BALL. It is a privilege for me to represent the major city directors and the Board of Education of Independent School District No. 625, St. Paul, Minn., before your committee today. By way of background, the board of education and the school administration mandated in 1967 food service for all children in St. Paul as rapidly as it could be accomplished. Secondary schools and three elementary schools serving handicapped children had been in the school lunch program for many years. Fifty-nine elementary programs were opened between September 1967, and September 1971. All of the 49,837 children in the St. Paul public schools have a hot, well-balanced, nutritious lunch available today. We have 92 lunch programs and this includes satelliting the school lunch to four parochial schools, 31 breakfast programs, and four pilot programs for feeding the elderly in operation now. There are 35 kitchens which provide the lunch for their school and 57 satellite schools. We have an average daily participation of 28,000 students or approximately 62 percent of the enrollment. As of March 9, we are providing free and reduced price lunches to 11,626 students or 24.2 percent of the student body. We wholeheartedly support the concept of a universal food service and nutrition education program. We feel it is essential and urgent that pilot programs be instituted in both large and small city, urban, and rural districts on a districtwide basis. Problems in each of these areas are often unrelated and feasibility studies are needed to find 86-070-72- -3 solutions that would insure acceptance of universal feeding by all school districts. After 2 years of operation under Public Law 91-248, which was certainly the greatest thing that has happened to food service since its inception, directors are finding, in spite of all of their precautions, that it is virtually impossible to protect the anonymity of the nonpaying child. Administrators at National and State levels have not been able to tell us how to comply successfully with this regulation. Families whose income places them in a bracket just outside of the eligibility standards for free or reduced price lunches cannot receive assistance and at the same time cannot afford in this inflated era to pay for their children's lunch. This forces them to carry bag lunches which in many cases do not meet accepted nutrition standards. It seems to us that the "forgotten child" is the one who does not qualify for free and can't really afford to pay. Universal food service would permit us to feed all of the elements of society without discrimination. There is a direct relationship between the price of school lunch and participation. Last year, in St. Paul, we had 26 schools in low income areas on totally reduced rates. The maximum charge was 20 cents per lunch. Regulations were changed this year and we were not permitted to continue this operation. Our records show that we are feeding 14.2 percent fewer children in these schools now that the price of the lunch has returned to 30 cents for elementary students and 35 cents for secondary. Another area of concern for us is the nonpaying children who sell or barter their tickets for things like cigarettes and money. Off the record, the going price for a pack of cigarettes in one of our junior high schools is three free lunch tickets. We recognize the children who do this are in the minority, but we have no way of preventing these situations. We find that the administration of the guidelines as outlined by the Department of Agriculture in providing policy statements for parents, applications for free and reduced lunch, eligibility standards, acceptance or rejection notices to parents, tickets, and so forth, to be very costly. We, in St. Paul, listed only those items to which we could readily attach a dollar value and found that this year we have spent more than $26,000. We could have provided children with 47,780 lunches based upon our last year's cost figure for the same amount of money. This does not include intangibles such as sorting paid, free, and reduced tickets; making reports; selling tickets in our schools, and so forth. We believe that implementation of universal food service into a city system is not impossible. In St. Paul, we would need to provide approximately 18,000 more lunches per day. We do not intend to minimize such an undertaking but we do believe that with careful planning, some additional equipment and personnel, we could accomplish this from our existing kitchens. We believe that every person in food service would put forth that extra effort if our goal of feeding every child was attainable. We recognize that the clerical and statistical reporting required in a pilot universal food service program would be extensive but would hope that once the problems were resolved and criteria established this aspect of the operation could be simplified. It seems to many of us today that we spend more of our time keeping records than we do concentrating our efforts on our first concern which is to provide a hot, appetizing, nutritious lunch for children. Another area of concern to many of us is reimbursement for universal food service. Until such time as there is a national accounting system established for food service, we feel that a more equitable method of reimbursement would be a flat rate paid for each lunch served since cost factors vary greatly from district to district. We believe one of the most important aspects of universal food service is the assurance that every child has a lunch that will provide one-third of the nutritional requirements for the day available to him, regardless of parental income. The National Nutrition Education Conference held last November pointed out the growing concern for the lack of good nutrition in the diets of teenagers. Studies and surveys throughout the country have shown that teenage diets from all cultural, social, and economic groups are inadequate and deficient in many of the essential nutrients. Reports also show that this is not due to the lack of good foods, but from improper food choices. This could be corrected with nutrition education. Sound nutrition education which begins in early childhood enables each individual throughout his life to make wise decisions in his food choices. Research has shown that when individuals are repeatedly given nutritional knowledge, they will establish good, lifetime nutrition practices. St. Paul is fortunate in having a nutrition resource person on staff and the food service department has both a dietician and a nutritionist. For the last year and a half these people have worked with the local dairy council in presenting inservice training to elementary teachers. These workshops proved the overwhelming lack of training in nutrition and the great need to have this subject added to the curriculum at the college level for teachers. We believe that the ultimate responsibility for nutrition education. in the elementary schools belongs to the classroom teacher. As a result we are attempting to teach teachers to teach nutrition to children. In order to provide a sequential K-12 nutrition education program as a part of the pilot programs for universal food service, materials at the secondary level would need to be developed. We have found that most programs pertain only to the elementary school and little is available at the secondary level that seems to be relevant to this age group. A student committee from the 10 high schools in St. Paul has been established to work with the food service department in the areas of (1) improving school lunch, (2) basic nutrition education, (3) means of communication between the food service department and the student population. In summary we would like to suggest the following: 1. There is an urgent need for universal food service and nutrition education in schools today. 2. Districtwide pilot programs would answer our many questions on the implementation and operation of such a program. The crisis approach to change under which we operate needs to be eliminated and replaced with proper short- and long-term planning. The greatest frustration the food service director has at the local level today is the lack of time for proper planning due to the length of time required to interpret and process new legislation. 3. We have heard in many instances astronomical figures used to describe needs for equipment and labor to implement the universal food service program. We are not authorities in this, but our experience in installing elementary satellite programs has taught us that you can feed an additional 200 to 500 children from an existing kitchen. 4. For years we have known that you cannot teach a hungry child," and affluence does not mean an adequate diet, consequently every child should have an opportunity to participate in school feeding programs. 5. Our nutrition training programs for teachers indicate a definite need for nutrition education to be taught as a part of teacher training curriculum. Teachers are obvioulsy the best approach for reaching children with nutrition education. 6. The school food service programs are an integral part of every child's education and should be treated as such. In other fields children are not asked to pay for educational materials. Why should they be asked to pay for their lunch? 7. Good childhood nutrition guarantees stronger and healthier adults who will be better able to solve their own and the world's problems in the coming generations. Chairman PERKINS. Mr. Quie? Mr. QUIE. Mrs. Ball, welcome to our committee. You did a great job there in St. Paul. I just want to ask you a couple of questions. When you say universal food service, do you mean that no cost to any of the students when you use the word "universal”? Mrs. BALL. At no cost to the students, yes, sir. Mr. QUIE. What is the cost per meal now? Mrs. BALL. 541⁄2 cents. Mr. QUIE. Do you think you will reduce the cost if you went to a universal plan? Mrs. BALL. Yes, sir; one reason being you will utilize your facilities to far better advantage. We have proved this in putting elementary schools in our satellite programs. We have schools in St. Paul-take Harding High School in May-June of 1967 they were preparing meals for 924 students I believe. Today they are doing meals for 2,400. We have added one double convention oven and a baker's table, and that is all the equipment we have put in, and they are doing it. Mr. QUIE. The St. Paul schools, I understand, have some financial difficulties, from what I have been reading. Is that correct? Mrs. BALL. They lost their bond issue last Tuesday. Mr. QUIE. And the state law evidently does not affect them favorably? Mrs. BALL. No, it does not. The other way around. Mr. QUIE. Now, if the Federal Government was going to provide some substantial additional money, do you think the people would want that to provide free food service to those who could afford to pay for it, or do you think they would like to improve the education in St. Paul and pay for some of the cost of educating the children? Mrs. BALL. Mr. QUIE, of course, food service is my business. I think every child should have an opportunity to have a hot lunch every day. I do not think it should be based on parental income. I think it |