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ECISD nutrition director reports rising participation under CEP, highlights costs and capital investments
Summary
Ector County ISD's school nutrition director reported that the district'wide Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) has increased meal participation, described operations and budget pressures, and outlined capital investments including freezer conversion and planned generators to protect food during outages.
Ector County Independent School District's director of school nutrition reported on program operations, budgets and planned investments and said the district'wide Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) has increased breakfast and lunch participation while the program continues to absorb a portion of meal costs not reimbursed by USDA.
The update matters because feeding roughly tens of thousands of students daily affects district budgets, staffing, and student well'being; the director said sustaining high participation is important to program viability.
Dr. Pena, director of school nutrition, told trustees the district began CEP in the 2022 school year, which enables breakfast and lunch free to all students and eliminates lunch-balance stigma. She said federal reimbursements through the U.S. Department of Agriculture cover about 81 percent of the reimbursable-meal cost for ECISD'served meals and the district covers the remaining roughly 19 percent through local operations and a la carte sales. Pena said the program serves about 14,000 breakfasts and 18,000 lunches daily; breakfast participation rose 9 percent and lunch participation rose 8 percent compared with the prior year.
Pena described a variety of feeding programs: breakfast in the classroom at many campuses, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) for after-school snacks in partnership with Camp Fire West Texas at eight campuses, and summer meal operations. To boost participation amid a net loss of five serving sites this year, nutrition staff introduced a daily pizza entree and second-entrée options; Pena emphasized those a la carte and second-entrée sales are designed to meet federal nutrition standards and help close the reimbursement gap.
On staffing, Pena said the department employs about 235 people and that the district instituted a two-step hiring process in which new hires begin as substitutes for roughly a three-month evaluation period before being offered permanent positions; pay is the same during that period. The department offers stipends and bonuses for Texas Association of Student Nutrition certifications (for example, $500 for level 1, $800 for level 2) and monitors labor-efficiency metrics and food-cost targets.
Capital and procurement items included a warehouse refrigerator-to-freezer conversion that expanded frozen storage capacity by 2,500 cases and produced recurring savings (staff estimated about $10 per case compared with distributor sourcing, or roughly $25,000 per shipment). Pena said the department is planning to install generators to protect walk-in refrigerators and freezers after a recent overnight power outage required staff to move food to the central warehouse.
Trustees asked about pay competitiveness, program participation strategies and safety; Pena said a la carte items meet nutrition standards and reiterated that the department reinvests excess fund balance into equipment and dining-area improvements. Pena said the food show community events had attracted about 900 attendees previously and the department aims to exceed 1,000 at its next show to increase transparency and menu feedback.
The presentation was informational; no board action was taken. Pena said sustaining CEP participation, monitoring procurement and completing planned capital investments are priorities for the coming year.
