While students were relaxing over this summer, there was still training happening at Penn-Trafford High School. The cafeteria workers were in the building learning a completely new computer program to operate at lunch, including a new way to charge students for the meals they eat.
The food provider for all the elementary, middle and high schools is still the same as before: Aramark. It is still the same food a student is receiving, though it is just a different touch screen to charge students.
The reason they switched was because of an update from Aramark, who they still have a contract with. The old system was called K-12 Meals and it was replaced with the new system, Express Point.
This switch comes with a lot of positives for Terry Chavara, who is the Food Service Director for the P-T School District, and the rest of the administration. It makes it easier to keep track of students’ accounts, to report back to the state on any issues and makes the process much smoother to allow any student that needs a free lunch to get their lunch.
But on top of all these positives on the backend, Chavara said there are a few negatives to the program. The first is that the cafeteria workers had to relearn a whole new system on the new touch screens, which can be hard especially since many of them had been using the old touch screens for years. This has sometimes slowed the line down as workers try to get used to the new screens, but Chavara is not worried.
“They [cafeteria workers] do not know it [the new touch screens] so it slowed down the service a little bit but it is getting faster,” stated Chavara.
The only possible other con is the Express Point system relies on the internet to operate, so if for some reason the internet is not working then the program might have some problems. This problem has not occurred so far this year.
In terms of changes for students, there are a few. The most notable is that students can now see how much money they have remaining in their accounts without asking their parents. All students have to do is go to the website, schoolcafe.com/PennTraffordSD, and click student account and then sign in. This allows students to see how much money they have remaining and what their past transactions were. From the same website, parents can see how much money their child has remaining, see their past transactions and put more money in their account.
The other notable thing for students to remember is to try not to go into debt. The administration is looking to avoid students going into tons of debt so they do not have to worry about tracking down parents and paying off a lot of debt at the end of the year.
This does not mean that the cafeteria workers will not let a student eat lunch or deny a student food. This just means that if a student tries to buy unnecessary items like ice cream and it brings them to a negative total, workers will tell them to put something back. If a child already has no funds, the workers will offer them one of the free meals while reminding their parents they need to pay. Making sure students get proper nutrition at lunch is important to the school so they will not let a child not get the chance to eat.
“We [in administration] always make sure students eat lunch,” stated principal Tony Aquilio, “When I am standing there and I see a kid that does not have the money, I will pay for it myself just to make sure they get fed”.
By Mia Williams, Managing Editor and Mia Rutherford, Staff Writer