With close to 30 years of experience in child nutrition, Richardson ISD executive director of nutrition Alissa Gustof is plenty familiar with the perception of school lunch.
“Hospitals and schools get a bad rap,” Gustof says. “And we’re the low hanging fruit, because it’s easy to pick on that.”
After wrangling with COVID-19 era constraints and settling into her role as director in 2020, she says it’s time for a change in quality.
The Texas Department of Agriculture is responsible for setting standards for school lunches and nutrition. Directors like Gustof must ensure their menus and meals fall within the regulations and requirements set in the over 1,000-page Administrative Reference Manual.
“Nowhere does TDA talk about food quality.” Gustof says. “So you get so stuck in how much to serve and is it red and orange and are you serving the variety and did you have a legume this week and is that whole grain breading and you know all the other boxes you’re trying to tick. Having mastered that coming out of COVID now it’s like, you know what, now it’s time to look at our food quality.”
After earning her master’s degree, Gustof worked for Wichita Falls ISD for a few years, followed by stops in Garland and Dallas. Twenty years ago, she landed at RISD and has remained ever since.
She is a registered dietitian, and knows that healthy, nutritious meals are crucial to children’s well being and learning ability.
“Hungry kids can’t learn,” Gustof says. “So being very aware of the dietary guidelines for Americans and the obesity epidemic. The rates of diabetes and the rates of fatty liver disease in children are shocking. So you know, just getting better quality or just good quality food. I mean, we know it’s whole grain, we know it’s lower sodium. So being conscious about things that are high in sugar or processed.”
A 2018 study by the University of California at Berkeley found that schools which served healthy lunches consistently reported higher scores on statewide tests. In addition, the study found that the score improvements, while modest, came at a low cost.
But whole grains and proteins aren’t the only factors she has to account for in menu planning.
“The nutrition I think is essential,” Gustof says. “But if it’s not beautiful and delicious, and they’re going to eat it, you know. I can make the most nutritional menu in the world, but if it’s yucky, it’s gone to the garbage. I need to feed children, not garbage cans.”
She tests out new meals through student sampling, where RISD students try prospective menu items and provide feedback. Gustof said it’s one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
“If you do a student sampling and you try new things,” Gustof says. “They’re like ‘is that going to be on the menu tomorrow?’ And you hate to say ‘well, no, I gotta go through the bid process. Like you might see it next August, right?’ But being able to deliver on some of that if you can swing that and start incorporating some of those changes. Because, you know, I want changes if they’re good. I want changes to happen right away.”
One positive change in food quality she plans to enact: serving diverse meals, which reflect the district’s growing diversity and multiculturalism.
“We have people who are first-gen from other countries that have never seen a chicken nugget,” Gustof says. “So we’re looking at making more scratch-made, vegetarian and not just the yogurt meal but if we’re going to do the chicken vindaloo can we do it with chickpeas and make it vegetarian.”
She says that the district will likely begin serving the meals at the high school level, as elementary schools aren’t exactly the best place to experiment.
Whatever they’re serving, Gustof wants to ensure that RISD students have access to nutritious, flavorful breakfasts and lunches, served with a smile.
“All they need to know is that the people in the line are nice to them,” Gustof says. “The food looks delicious. They could take what they wanted and enjoy their meal.”
