SNA-White House continue battle over school meals
June 04, 2014 | 01:25 PM
The School Nutrition Association is apparently angry with the Obama administration over what its leaders view as the unwillingness of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Sam Kass, the executive director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity, to meet in person with its leadership this spring.
But an Agriculture Department spokesperson pointed out to The Hagstrom Report that administration officials have met with SNA continually.
SNA, which represents school meal preparers, has asked Congress to require USDA to grant a waiver from the healthier meals rules to any school that says it has lost money in the meals program for six months.
The House Appropriations Committee included the waiver in the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill, but the Obama administration including First Lady Michelle Obama opposes it, and the Senate Appropriations Committee has passed a much softer measure to increase flexibility in implementation of the rules.
Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon said Monday that SNA turned down an offer from Janey Thornton, his deputy in charge of the school meals program, to hold a conference call discussing problems SNA sees in implementation of the healthier rules.
Asked for a reaction to Concannon’s statement, SNA issued a statement.
“Because implementation of these regulations is paramount to our members and the 30 million children they serve, School Nutrition Association requested an in-person meeting with Agriculture Secretary Vilsack and executive director of Let’s Move! Sam Kass in the lead-up to the House Appropriations Committee discussions,” SNA’s statement said.
“We had SNA’s leadership team — school nutrition professionals from all over the country — lined up to come to Washington and participate in the meeting. But we were denied. We believe that a policy issue so critical to our nation as child nutrition and ensuring students get the nourishment they need to excel in the classroom would be high enough on the list for these Washington officials to take a meeting. We were clearly — and unfortunately — mistaken.
“As this discussion moves forward we hope that Washington officials will be open to the concerns of school nutrition and education professionals in communities across the country and that we are able to work together to ensure students have access to healthy and appealing school lunch options that they will actually eat.”
USDA reacted to the SNA statement with the following comment:
“USDA is committed to working with schools, parents, educators, members of the medical community, and school nutrition professionals to ensure that America's children have access to safe, healthy school meals.”
A USDA source said that requests for meetings with Vilsack on specific subjects go through the undersecretary in charge of that area because the secretary could not possibly take all such meeting requests.
A White House source also pointed out to The Hagstrom Report that Kass had spoken at three SNA conferences and consulted frequently with SNA leaders for years. The source also said that since there had been a change of leadership at SNA “no meeting has been requested.”
USDA also issued the following list of “interactions” with SNA this year:
The USDA source said that Thornton will attend the SNA annual conference in Boston on July 13 to 16.
Reached by telephone from Arizona, where she attended the SNA conference earlier this week, Thornton said that no one at the conference told her that the school meals rules should be rolled back.
Thornton said she pointed out that fighting obesity is important for the food companies as businesses because they face rising health care costs, and she said a number of industry leaders came up to her and thanked her for the administration's anti-obesity campaign.
She also noted that “a lot of industry folks have been really great partners” in developing food items that meet the new guidelines.
USDA will continue to be flexible in implementing the guidelines she said, adding that USDA will tell some schools that their costs may have risen more than necessary because there have been “misconceptions” about the new rules. All fruits and vegetables do not need to be fresh, Thornton said, and it is not necessary to source all foods locally.
But an Agriculture Department spokesperson pointed out to The Hagstrom Report that administration officials have met with SNA continually.
SNA, which represents school meal preparers, has asked Congress to require USDA to grant a waiver from the healthier meals rules to any school that says it has lost money in the meals program for six months.
The House Appropriations Committee included the waiver in the fiscal year 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill, but the Obama administration including First Lady Michelle Obama opposes it, and the Senate Appropriations Committee has passed a much softer measure to increase flexibility in implementation of the rules.
Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon said Monday that SNA turned down an offer from Janey Thornton, his deputy in charge of the school meals program, to hold a conference call discussing problems SNA sees in implementation of the healthier rules.
Asked for a reaction to Concannon’s statement, SNA issued a statement.
“Because implementation of these regulations is paramount to our members and the 30 million children they serve, School Nutrition Association requested an in-person meeting with Agriculture Secretary Vilsack and executive director of Let’s Move! Sam Kass in the lead-up to the House Appropriations Committee discussions,” SNA’s statement said.
“We had SNA’s leadership team — school nutrition professionals from all over the country — lined up to come to Washington and participate in the meeting. But we were denied. We believe that a policy issue so critical to our nation as child nutrition and ensuring students get the nourishment they need to excel in the classroom would be high enough on the list for these Washington officials to take a meeting. We were clearly — and unfortunately — mistaken.
“As this discussion moves forward we hope that Washington officials will be open to the concerns of school nutrition and education professionals in communities across the country and that we are able to work together to ensure students have access to healthy and appealing school lunch options that they will actually eat.”
USDA reacted to the SNA statement with the following comment:
“USDA is committed to working with schools, parents, educators, members of the medical community, and school nutrition professionals to ensure that America's children have access to safe, healthy school meals.”
A USDA source said that requests for meetings with Vilsack on specific subjects go through the undersecretary in charge of that area because the secretary could not possibly take all such meeting requests.
A White House source also pointed out to The Hagstrom Report that Kass had spoken at three SNA conferences and consulted frequently with SNA leaders for years. The source also said that since there had been a change of leadership at SNA “no meeting has been requested.”
USDA also issued the following list of “interactions” with SNA this year:
- January 11: Deputy Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Janey Thornton attended SNA School Nutrition Industry Conference in Miami.
- January 29: Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon met with SNA at USDA headquarters
- February 24: Thornton attended an SNA School Professional Standards webinar.
- February 25: SNA attended a joint announcement by the USDA and the First Lady’s office about school wellness and community eligibility at the White House.
- March 3: Thornton attended the SNA Legislative Action Conference in Washington.
- April 8: Thornton attended SNA’s Earth Day Service Learning Project and Celebration in Kansas City, Mo., at the personal invitation of SNA President Leah Schmidt.
- May 21-22: SNA invited FNS staff to “Industry Boot Camp” sessions about school nutrition, and they participated.
- May 28: FNS participated in an SNA webinar about the Smart Snacks in School rule.
- June 2-3: Thornton attended a SNA conference in Phoenix, Ariz.
The USDA source said that Thornton will attend the SNA annual conference in Boston on July 13 to 16.
Reached by telephone from Arizona, where she attended the SNA conference earlier this week, Thornton said that no one at the conference told her that the school meals rules should be rolled back.
Thornton said she pointed out that fighting obesity is important for the food companies as businesses because they face rising health care costs, and she said a number of industry leaders came up to her and thanked her for the administration's anti-obesity campaign.
She also noted that “a lot of industry folks have been really great partners” in developing food items that meet the new guidelines.
USDA will continue to be flexible in implementing the guidelines she said, adding that USDA will tell some schools that their costs may have risen more than necessary because there have been “misconceptions” about the new rules. All fruits and vegetables do not need to be fresh, Thornton said, and it is not necessary to source all foods locally.
