By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Brandon Twp. — The Brandon school lunches will be changing for the 2024-2025 school year.
“Towards the end of the school year at the high school, we did a survey of students and we got valuable input about things that they liked, things that they didn’t like,” said Ashley LaHaye, director of food services. “We gave lots of different options of things to see if they were interested in having those items. We used that feedback to create new menus.”
For the first time, there will be two separate menus: one for Oakwood and Harvey-Swanson Elementaries, and one for Brandon Middle School and Brandon High School.
“Another thing we noticed was an opportunity for higher breakfast participation,” said LaHaye. “So in the past, the middle school had 14% participation and the high school had 7.5% for breakfast. And we definitely thought we could get those numbers higher. We also saw a need to get rid of prepackaged, really sugary breakfast items, so this year we’re starting at the middle and high school hot breakfast.”
Every day, at BMS and BHS, students will be able to choose from options such as scrambled eggs and sausage, omelets, and build-your-own breakfast sandwiches.
“We’re going to offer things that are higher in protein,” she said. “That are better to fuel their mind and help with learning in the classroom.”
Menus will also be available through Nutrislice, which is a digital menu platform.
“It’s a digital marketing company with interactive menu platforms that easily allows students and parents to view menus, get nutrition information, and see major allergens for all menu items,” she said. “They also provide digital displays for all schools for their menu boards.”
LaHaye also talked about the increase in meals served over the last school year since free meals for all students were available, as well as how many students were served with the summer Meet Up and Eat Up program.
“23-24 was the first time that we did Michigan School Meals, which included free breakfast and free lunch for every student,” she said. “There was a big increase in participation, we had a 74% increase in breakfast participation and a 31% increase in lunch participation. So for breakfast, we had about 38,000 more breakfasts and 40-some thousand more lunches. It was a significant increase, and it was put in the budget again. We are very excited to get higher numbers this year.”
The free meals for students is part of the state education budget for school districts state-wide. It also includes the summer feeding programs.
Summer feeding was done two ways for the 2024 summer: congregate feeding at Oakwood during the summer programs, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and pick-up outside of the high school.
“We served 715 breakfasts and 755 lunches at Oakwood,” she said.
For the pick-up, families were able to sign up online and receive seven days worth of breakfasts and lunches for their students to take home and heat up throughout the week. There were also four-day packs available for families with students participating in the Oakwood summer programs.
“That was really exciting, we were surprised in the participation,” she said. “So we served 5,188 breakfasts and 5,188 lunches. That’s a total of 11,846 meals we were able to give to kids this summer.”