FAQ

A: You’ve probably heard the facts before: Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in the United States have tripled. Today, more than 23 million children and teens are overweight or obese, which places them at increased risk for serious diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and stroke. Ensuring that school meals are healthy and in line with current nutrition science is important for kids’ health as well as for academics. Research shows that students who do not have reliable, healthy meals in kindergarten are noticeably behind their peers in reading and math by the third grade. Given these concerns and advancements in nutrition, school nutrition standards have gone into effect.

A: Jeffco Food & Nutrition Services has a dedicated Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist who helps plan all of our menus. They help us make sure our menus meet strict nutritional guidelines set up by the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. Developing menus is really a team effort though. We also have an executive chef who helps test all of our recipes to ensure quality. But more importantly you help plan menus too! We value feedback from students, parents, and the greater community to help ensure our student’s preferences are taken into consideration.

A: What’s on the menu? Every day multiple different entrée, fruits, vegetables, and low‐fat or nonfat milk options are available to your student. Each meal meets the calories, sodium, and Saturated and trans- fats requirements. What does this look like for your student? Over 95% of our grain options are Whole Grain, none of our products have trans-fat, and less than 10% of calories come from saturated fat. Calories and sodium are controlled based on grade level and every day students have a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables offered.To see your school’s specific menu, click here: http://jeffcopublicschools.nutrislice.com/
A: At Breakfast students have a wide variety of options daily this may include various cereals, oatmeal, French toast, muffins, oatmeal bars, and freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Along with an entrée a student can select two fruit options and a milk. To make a breakfast meal a student has to take at least one fruit.
A: At Lunch student have even more options and varieties. Depending on grade levels students have between 3 and 7 different entrée options every day. This includes: made from scratch tacos, teriyaki chicken and rice, Philly cheesesteak, pizza, Frito pie, spaghetti and meatballs, yogurt parfait, hamburger, etc. We offer a variety of fresh, frozen, dried, and canned fruit daily along with various raw and cooked vegetables. For a student to make a complete meal, they must take at least one fruit or vegetable. Students Pre-K through 8th grade a meal includes: an entrée, one fruit, two vegetables and a milk. For high school students they can take an entrée, two fruit, two vegetables, and a milk for a meal. Water is available for students during the full lunch hour at schools.

A: As a participant in the National School Lunch Program, Jeffco Food & Nutrition Services must offer all food items, including a la carte or snack items, to all students during meal service. However, limits can be put on student accounts with permission from their parent or guardian to restrict what items or how much money can be spent on their student’s account. The form to do this can be found here: click here

A: A la carte foods can include any of our food item offerings on any given day. Students and adults can purchase any hot or cold food from the lunch line by itself and can also purchase any of our snack offerings. For example, a student can bring their lunch from home and purchase only a fresh whole apple from the line and that is considered a la carte.

A: The National School Lunch Program regulations have very specific guidelines on meal pricing for both students and adults. Unlike meals provided to students, no federal money is given to reimburse adult meals. Therefore, the money we bring in from the sale of an adult meal must cover all costs that Jeffco Food & Nutrition takes on to provide the meal. This includes factors for all meal components (meat/meat alternate, fruit, vegetable, grain, and milk) as well as indirect costs (such as labor and delivery costs).

A: The National School Lunch Program regulations have very specific guidelines on meal pricing for all grade levels. Regulations also dictate that students have more food choices to make full reimbursable meals as they go from elementary to middle to high school levels. Therefore, secondary level meals (those in middle and high schools) cost more. This helps cover the cost that Jeffco Food & Nutrition incurs to help offer more items.

Due to COVID-19, we will not be implementing share tables at this time.