School facilities pose challenges to Mayor Adams’ healthy food agenda for NYC kids

Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to up the quality of food served in NYC public schools may be slowed by an array of obstacles that could prove vexing — including the state of the school system’s kitchens.

The city is poised Tuesday afternoon to announce a plan to upgrade dozens of school cafeterias to a more contemporary self-serve, grab-and-go model, but many kitchens in old school buildings are also in need of renovations such as new equipment and air conditioners.

“Not all the cafeterias are at the same level,” said Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa, who serves on the NYC Council’s education committee. “It’s unclear to me which schools have what.”

The Department of Education’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services operates 1,300 kitchens across local schools, including some charter and non-public schools — but some kitchens rely on reheating meals because they don’t have stoves for scratch cooking, which are often needed to serve the fresh, but perishable food that Adams has advocated for.

Others have stoves, but might not have the proper ventilation to use them, noted De La Rosa, who said she is unaware of what the administration has planned to address those issues. A Council report issued in June suggested that investments in kitchen infrastructure are needed to carry out Adams’ policy goals.

“Many schools lack the equipment to cook food, instead having only the ability to heat pre-prepared foods,” the report noted. “In fact, many school kitchens lack air conditioning, and excessive heat creates problems for food preparation as well as causing unhealthy work conditions for school food workers.”

The city guarantees that every school has either a kitchen or receives daily meals from a nearby school. All kitchens have the equipment necessary to whip up plant-based scratch recipes on Fridays, according to City Hall — a new initiative under the city’s oft-vegan mayor.

Adams’ goal of providing schoolkids with more healthy food has been widely praised and on Tuesday he plans to announce renovations at dozens of cafeterias.

The initiative, funded by $50 million in capital funding, will go toward upgrading more than 80 school buildings over the next year. The announcement builds on a recent pilot program that advocates say encourages more students to eat school food — by making food that’s easier to grab-and-go and setting up seating arrangements that are more inviting.

“A lot of the time, we think of school as reading, writing and arithmetic, but students also come here to develop their social skills,” said Scott Milczewski, principal at Hillcrest High School, one of the pilot sites. “It allows for the kids to be a lot more social at lunch.”

Figures from the Council show 44 middle and high school cafeterias were redesigned to look more like a food court or college dining hall by last May.

“The classroom isn’t the only place in a school building where a child learns,” said Adams in a statement. “After two years of the pandemic, we realize how important it is for students to be able to socialize and interact with each other in a comfortable setting over a healthy, culturally appropriate meal.”

The focus on school breakfasts and lunches comes at a vital time, as food insecurity surged 46% among children citywide during the pandemic, according to the Council’s report. Schools selected for the remodel were focused in neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by COVID, and based on enrollment and participation in school lunches, education officials said.

The renovations involve shifting to a self-serve model where students can quickly move through display cases offering reduced-fat milk, fresh fruit, cold meals like salads and sandwiches, and daily hot meals like mozzarella sticks or pizza and specials. They also include new tables, chairs and decor.

In District 28, where Hillcrest High School is located, the renovations there and at a second site have led to a nearly 44% increase in participation during its first year, according to Lauren Paccione, who supervises food and nutrition services for the district.

“The students have more choices, they have more of a variety, which they like,” Paccione said.

The cafeteria enhancements are the latest in a list of policies introduced under Adams to improve the quality of school food.

The mayor at the beginning of his term notoriously introduced “Vegan Fridays” — later rebranded as “plant-powered” because some food and drinks were derived from animals — to encourage healthy eating. Hizzoner also convened a new “Chefs Council,” led by daytime TV star Rachael Ray, to develop more than 100 plant-based recipes for city schools.

But problems remain for schools to fully realize Adams’ fresh school food agenda.

Donald Nesbit, executive vice president of DC 37′s Local 372, representing school food workers, doesn’t necessarily see the lack of stoves in school cafeterias as a huge issue, considering schools that do have working kitchens have the ability to deliver what they make to schools that don’t.

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“Some schools are schools that you transport food to. They don’t actually cook the meal there. It’s made, it’s prepared in a school that has an oven and is then transported in bags and the DOE actually hires a service or a vendor to take the food to those locations,” he said.

But Nesbit, who served as a public school cook from 1998 to 2014, said the sector is still facing major staffing woes coming out of the pandemic. It’s also unclear how many school kitchens have equipment that’s in working order and how many don’t — and that taking that inventory is something the city should get on.