the history of madison metropolitan school district

The History of Madison Metropolitan School District 1

The History of Madison Metropolitan School District

Doris R Evans

Axia College of University of Phoenix

HTT/240 Food and Beverage Management: Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy

Cecily Anthony


Although legislation governing the school lunch program began as early as 1946, it

wasn’t until 1965 that Madison Metropolitan School District was pressured by the United States

Department of Agriculture to offer a lunch program. In their defense, schools were built with

limited or no facilities for food preparation, leaving no provisions for serving lunch or breakfast.

The food service production manager of the Madison Metropolitan School District faced

decisions about how to implement a lunch program for a district that limited facilities for food

production and serving capacity. With limited options, the district implemented a pre-pack

system and later consolidated food preparation for secondary school into the three high schools.

The food service production manger had to decide where the food would be prepared in relation

to where it is served. The decision was made to use an existing kitchen in the Glendale

neighborhood that was modified to prepare meals for all the elementary schools.

The early and mid seventies led to financial losses and the decision to eliminate the food

service director position, decision to bid for a food contractor but later over turned due to a

political scandal and the hiring of a new administrative staff to run the program. Economic and

political conditions played a major role in creating financial stress for the lunch program, created

a stable source of income and reduced food waste, the expansion and growth of the breakfast

programs and the hiring and retention of qualified employees was a lot easier to obtain.

Suggestions would include decisions on an efficient way to organize foodservice

department that are based on utilizing the best production, distribution and service operation

suitable for their particular situation. The change from production to customer focus and adding

a la carte items to the menu was a helped create a stable source of income and resulted in a

dramatic increase in sales. Implementing central food production, meeting nutritional guidelines


and focusing on the health and well-being of the children were creative ways Madison

Metropolitan School District used to improve the quality of the school lunch programs.

As a result of economic and political conditions, the need to become more self-

supporting, raise prices for paying students, and attracting more paying students to the program

to offset the future cuts in the school lunch programs. It has become apparent in many states that

economic conditions will endure major cuts in education and will MMSD will see changes in

how the government subsidize the school lunch program.

Madison Metropolitan School District is an open system that is influenced by and

interacts regularly with external forces in its surrounding environment. MMSD external forces

includes receives funding from the state of Wisconsin and the federal government, raw materials,

information, supplies, equipment, time, utilities, the physical plant and personnel. The existing

outputs include turning the raw materials into finished meals with ready-to-serve foods,

customers (students) and employee satisfaction. It is important that MMSD do not make the

mistake of ignoring the environmental factors that link management and operations. All parts of

the open system are linked by management functions such as planning, organizing, coordinating,

and staffing. Finally receiving feedback from students, parents, administration, teachers, staff

and the community is used to improve the operations as necessary.

The Madison Metropolitan School District mission statement explains their reason for

existence. Their mission statement is “Good nutrition is a key to success for all,” could be

modified to, “Providing our students with a nutrition program that improve will our students

standard of education with daily balanced meals as our number one priority.”


MMSD Foodservice Program Diagram –

Since Madison Metropolitan School District serves over forty individual schools in a

130-mile radius, the challenges of food safety has forced them make a concerted effort to

implement and maintain an effective food safety program that includes HACCP and a foundation

of prerequisite programs. To address these challenges the District hired a full-time food scientist

to oversee the food safety program. They ensured that all staff including managers, receiving

clerks, food handlers, servers are consistently trained and supervised on proper food handling

techniques. Another major challenge to the District is the language barrier, 140 food handlers

from a wide variety of backgrounds, speaking eight separate languages make it very difficult to

ensure that the knowledge and skills are being communicated to each and every food handler.

They also require that all food employees successfully complete the SERVSAFE food safety

course as a condition of employment. As a result of these efforts and the efforts to ensure that

hazards are minimized even before food and ingredients enter the warehouse and storage

Operations

Transformation from Materials to Products, Staff to Student, Input to Output

Inputs

Raw Materials, Fresh Produce, Beverages, Staff, Scheduling, Menu Planning, Supplies, Facilities

Feedback

Outputs

Finished Products, Catered Events, A la Carte, Customer Service, Employee Satisfaction, Community Satisfaction, Revenue

Controls

Food Service Safety, Laws and Regulations, Food Contracts, Policies and

Procedures

Management

Decision Making, Communication, Problem Solving

Memory

Records – Personal, Financial, Forecasting


facilities, there have been no reports of foodborne illness in the history of the operation. Madison

Metropolitan School District as addressed these challenges by ensuring that their customers

receive safe, nutritious, and delicious food each and every day.

The need to provide a clean, safe foodservice facility that would ensure the health and

well-being of both employees and customers, Madison Metropolitan School District created the

position of Quality Control Manager. The Quality Control Manager has the task of creating a

philosophy of good sanitation and maintains standards of cleanliness to the employees. It should

be suggested that quality control manager are trained and knowledgeable about cleaning and

sanitation procedures and practices that are government mandated or accepted as best practice

for the foodservice industry. It was noted that the administrative staff at MMSD developed a

working partnership with Ecolabs to provide training for employees on the proper use of

chemicals. When working with chemicals it is important that is safe, efficient in cleaning and

sanitizing, and is cost-effective.

Planning a menu for customers that are school children is a challenge, Madison

Metropolitan School District has develop a successful plan that reflect their mission, works

within the budgetary constraints of the organization, meet the needs and preferences of their

customer, as well as the objectives of the food and nutrition program. They have met the

challenges of offering a selection of foods that is affordable and satisfying to the customers,

while producing a menu that is in the within the constraint of the physical facilities the school

system.

MMSD foodservice management staff has worked very hard to accommodate the

increasing demands of students for a more variety in the school meal program. They began to


pilot two programs, the Choice Lunch Program and the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch project.

The Choice Lunch Program was designed to offer students in elementary schools a choice

between two entrees at lunch and the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch project was a cooperative

effort with local farmers to plan menus that included locally grown food products. The success of

these programs received positive feedback and praise from students, parents, and staff.

When Madison Metropolitan School District decided to switch from a competitive bid

system of purchasing to Sysco a prime vendor arrangement, was primarily a need to save time

because the planning and requests for bids are time consuming and must be made well in

advance to check availability of supplies and to determine a fair price. The major advantage to

competitive bid buying is that the contract is generally awarded to the vendor with the best price

and quality. The MMSD was interested in finding a purchasing system where prices are reduced

through high volume and time saving. The time saving would come from not having to submit

several bids for numerous vendors. The prime vendor arrangement offered MMSD a strong,

professional partnership with a vendor and services such as computer software for submitting

and tracking orders. The major drawback for this system was being required to purchase a certain

percentage of their products from that vendor. They must be cautious of price increases over

time; and make certain that procedures are in place for periodically auditing prices should be

clearly defined as part of the agreement.

The switch to Sysco has created additional responsibilities for the maintenance

department for receiving, storage, and inventory process. With more frequent deliveries the

maintenance department staff must ensure that items are checked carefully and promptly

transferred to proper storage. It is important that responsibility of receiving and control over the

merchandise received should be delegated to specific, competent and well trained person. This


person should learn to appreciate the urgency of the receiving function in cost and quality

control. Additional qualifications include knowledge of food quality standards and awareness of

written specifications, the ability to evaluate product quality and recognize unacceptable product,

and an understanding of the proper documentation procedures. The most important qualifications

of this person should be trustworthy and possess leadership skills.

The Madison Metropolitan School District is classified as a commissary operation; the

food is generally ready-prepared and is transported to the schools for service. Since the food

transported either hot or cold, the cook/chill system is used for food production. The hot entrée

items are prepared two days in advance of service, prepared in the appropriate quantity,

microbiologically safe and within budgetary constraints. As soon as the cooking process is

completed the hot items are ready to be stored and immediately transferred to a blast chiller. The

rapid-chill process retains quality, minimizes microbial growth, and conserves nutrients. MMSD

Food Production Center has minimize conflicts by employing a well designed system to achieve

enhance aesthetics appeal, being microbiologically safe, and maximize nutrient retention.

Allowing students to participate in a sensory analysis gives students opportunity to formulate an

opinion to determine if the recipe is of acceptable quality.

Mealtime should run efficiently and effectively within the Madison Metropolitan School

District. There are large numbers of students released at 10 minute intervals to be fed and there

are certainly some challenges that will occur. The meals consist of a cold pack, a hot pack, and

carton of milk for each student to carry to the dining tables to eat. First, timing is the first

challenge. The hot packs need to be ready for each group of students and cannot be too hot or too

cold. The lines also need to move quickly and efficiently as the students are on limited time to

eat and have recess. Second, teachers must also make sure they release their students at the


appropriate time. Being too early or too late could cause a back-up in the cafeteria. Lastly, space

and proper seating arrangements must be present to keep up with the volume of meals served at

each school.

Flow of food from Receiving to Delivery –

Equipment Classification –

Cooking Noncooking Warewashing Service Equipment Production Equipment Equipment Equipment

Combi Oven 20-Quart Mixer Pan Washer Box Baler Range/Oven Food Processor Disposer Can Crusher 2-Burner Range Slicer Packaging Machine Convection Ovens Can Opener Fryer 80-Gallon Steam Kettle Rotary Rack Oven 100- Gallon Steam Kettle Booster Heater 40-Quart Steam Kettle Proofer Tilting Braising Pan

From the above list of equipment, the menu served by the MMSD facility is a selective

menu. With the number of ovens, kettles, as well as mixers and fryers, I would conclude one or

more food choices are available in some categories.

If Madison Metropolitan School District wanted to determine the amount of solid waste

they discard, it is suggested that they use the waste audit method because it is cost-effective.

Although waste stream analysis has been found to give the most accurate and precise information

Finished Product Cooler

Distribution Hallway to Receiving

Loaded on Trucks for Delivery

Delivered to kitchen for hot and cold storage

Arrive at MMSD schools


but is time-consuming and costly to perform. MMSD foodservice could reduce the amount of

waste produced by paper trays that are easy to recycle, reduce the quantity of waste materials

sent to landfills, and start a formal education program on recycling that is managed by the

students.


References

Payne-Palacio, J., & Theis, M. (2005). Introduction to Foodservice (10thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

the history of madison metropolitan school district

Documents