STAFF SHORTAGES PLAGUE KITCHENS
Food prep substitutes are hard to find, so everyone pitches in when a colleague is out
A correction to an earlier version of this article has been appended to the end of the article.
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon at Miller Middle School in San Jose, kids were rushing in and out of the cafeteria giddy with excitement. The lunch menu was popular on this day. There was a chipotle chicken salad, fresh strawberries, and best of all, hot slices of pizza.
Seven-hundred students stopped by to pick up lunch, now free to every one under a two-year-old state law. That was more than 60% of the student body — a busy day for the school's food staff as student after student wound through the line.
At least that day, no one from the kitchen crew had called in sick or had to stay home with an ill child. No one was injured or had jury duty.
When that happens, it's all hands on deck.
“When a person is out, a lot of times we don't have a sub because there's so little,” said Tamra Rodriguez, the kitchen supervisor at Miller Middle School, which is part of the Cupertino Union School District. “A lot of times that means everybody else has to soak up a little bit more work, and it's hard. It's a long day.”
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Cupertino Union, San Francisco Unified, Fremont Unified, San Ramon Valley Unified and several other Bay Area school districts are struggling to recruit and retain food workers at their on-campus kitchens.
During the 2022—23 school year, a statewide survey of 190 school nutrition departments found 12% of food staff positions in California schools were vacant, a rate three times greater than open teaching positions across the country.
This type of work is more in demand than ever before in California. In 2022, the state became the first in the nation to provide free breakfast and lunch to all school children regardless of income. In the two years since, school meal participation has increased on average by more than 3%. That number is even higher in schools where fewer students were previously eligible for free meals.
At Cupertino Union, the staffing shortage at the beginning of the school year was dire. The district had seven open positions out of a staff of 61 people, and had already seen a 45% boost in the number of lunches served per day after the introduction of universal meals.
Nicole Meschi, the district's senior director of nutrition services, was filling in at school sites up to four times a week and frequently calling on employees to pull longer shifts.
“It's a physically demanding job…asking them to work extra every single day for days and weeks on end is tiresome,” she said. “You risk burnout and not being able to even have them come in and cover their own shift.”
The annual turnover rate for