Training, more staff in place to improve school food services

Question:Whatever happened to the matter of handling food purchases, revenue and inventory at cafeterias in Hawaii’s public schools following an internal Department of Education audit last year that rated its food services program as "unacceptable"in the areas of oversight, monitoring and accountability?

Answer: After the Department of Education slammed the School Foods Services Branch for having unacceptable and outdated methods, improvements are in place and training ongoing, said Alex Da Silva, DOE communications specialist.

According to the audit, the DOE directed the food services operations to more precisely delineate who is accountable for the oversight of policies and procedures; require training for school food workers handling purchases; improve money collection procedures; update purchasing polices and procedures; and conduct more spot checks of food inventories.

Glenna Owens, director of School Foods Services, said the branch is now in compliance with all of the directives. Among the changes made in the aftermath of the audit are new mandatory training sessions for kitchen and office staffs on topics such as collection of revenue, lunch collection accounts, lunch loans and inventory. Training is ongoing, she said. Also, starting in January 2013, the branch took over food purchasing and meal payment collection duties previously handled by other DOE personnel.

Kevin Teshima, Radford High School’s food services manager, said all managers completed an inventory management training session in January. The training stressed that inventory should be handled by at least two kitchen staffers as a means to prevent errors.

When a single manager shoulders inventory, glitches are almost inevitable, Teshima said, noting that the task works best when a manager works in tandem with others. "It’s a team effort, especially for us," he said, because Radford’s relatively small cafeteria staff consists of five workers.

Lyle Hasegawa, Kapolei High School’s food services manager, said the new guidelines make the work easier. "Managers have had too much control (on inventory)," Hasegawa said. "This now spreads the work out. It’s more checked and balanced."

Wong said the branch also increased the number of food services supervisors, to 12 from seven. Supervisors leadtraining sessions and evaluate school cafeterias.

In addition, 14 school cafeterias statewide, including KapoleiHigh, are piloting a Web-based point-of-service system. The branch aims to include all 256 of Hawaii’s public schools in the system by the end of next year. Hasegawa said the system makes it easier for cafeteria staff to correct errors and for supervisors to access information.

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This update was written by Joie Nishimoto. Suggest a topic for "Whatever Happened To …" by writing Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210, Honolulu 96813; call 529-4747; or email cityeditors@staradvertiser.com.

CORRECTION: Glenna Owen is the director of School Food Services. An earlier version of this story misspelled her name.