Lincoln Renews Aramark Contract For Food Service

LINCOLN — Lincoln School Board recently voted to renew its food service contract with Aramark for another year but will review it next spring to see if participation from students has increased.

Mary Ann Spears, superintendent of schools, said the number of nutrition workers has been consistent but the number of meals being served has decreased.

Some of this can be attributed to enrollment being down slightly this year and that student participation is also down, Spears said.

“It’s been an interesting year,” Spears said. “Kids are not eating for one reason or another.”

Aramark and school staff are looking for ways to increase participation, particularly for breakfast.

Next year, the district will provide a free breakfast for all students, kindergarten through 12th grade. The district plans to apply for a grant to help pay for the free breakfast.

Michele Price, middle school principal, said her students would rather go outside than eat breakfast. To combat this, next year students will have time outside and then come inside for breakfast.

The high school will implement a later breakfast time to try to increase participation among older students. Another change will be to allow students to eat breakfast in the classroom in some cases.

Lincoln is finishing up its second year with Aramark as a third-party food service provider. As part of the contract, Aramark has guaranteed how much money it would give back to the district in savings.

The first year Aramark guaranteed to return $75,000 and the second year, it guaranteed to return $35,000. Spears said the company has not met its guarantee and has had to make up the difference.

For 2017-18, Aramark has reduced its guarantee to $20,000 and this only happens if the several thresholds are met, Spears said. The district has to have a minimum student enrollment and a certain number of meals have to be served.

“I can see us not meeting one or more of those,” Spears told board members.

She said, however, that she believes the risk is worth it not to have to bring food service back in-house.

“We’re not unhappy with the service and we’re certainly not unhappy with not having to deal with having it in-house,” Spears said. “I think outsourcing is still good for us.”

Board member Kendra Moore asked if Aramark could have a representative at board meetings to give updates on the service, participation and costs. Moore agreed with Spears that she did not want the district to return to the food service business.

In other matters, the board accepted the resignations of high school teacher Kaylyn Busch, band director Andrew Enis and Don Rutherford with maintenance. It approved hiring Mary Lee as a speech pathologist and Michelle Lumsargis as a high school teacher.