ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester City School Board of Education voted on a resolution Tuesday to hire back more food service workers. This comes as many online are criticizing the district for no-cook meals currently being served to students. 

But the support staff union BENTE is afraid this resolution won’t be enough to fix the problem. ​

What You Need To Know

  • The RCSD Board of Education voted to hire back more food service workers, as many online are criticizing the district for no-cook meals being served

  • BENTE is afraid this resolution won’t be enough to fix the problem

  • With fewer employees certified to serve hot food, the district is offering no-cook meals like cereal or sandwiches

  • BENTE’s president Dan DiClemente says hot meals should be a priority for the school district

Late last year, the Rochester City School District laid off 165 food service employees due to the financial strain of the pandemic. BENTE’s president Dan DiClemente says many others retired or looked for work elsewhere as hours were cut for those that remained. 

“And those were people in high level cook manager positions, to where they had the Serve Safe training so they can run the kitchens and still be in compliance with health codes,” DiClemente said.

With fewer employees certified to serve hot food, the district is offering no-cook meals like cereal or sandwiches. While these meals meet federal nutritional standards, the issue was still brought up at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

“I know some students have been less than happy with some of the meals that have been served lately,” RCSD Board of Education Commissioner Amy Maloy said.

A resolution was passed at the board meeting to hire eight food service employees back, but that might not be enough. Currently, the district would be in a deficit if they tried to serve hot meals to the number of students in the building. But RCSD Chief Operation Officer Mike Schmidt says hopefully that problem is not long term.

“As soon as we get more of a solid number of returning students, then I think the options will definitely increase, and I think that’s the best way to leave it for now,” Schmidt said.

But DiClemente says hot meals should be a priority for the school district.

“The kids that we serve on a daily basis are kids who are living in extreme poverty, in many cases. It’s their only meal of the day, and we believe they deserve a hot meal,” DiClemente said.

And if that means coming up with a new method of serving hot meals, like food delivery or dipping into the general fund to do so, then DiClemente believes the district should.

“If you have to take money out of the general fund, like they did last year, to supplement the food service fund, then you have to do those things if you care about kids and want to treat them the same way the suburban schools are treating their kids,” DiClemente said.