Every student in Miami-Dade County Public Schools can eat breakfast and lunch for free, but officials say tens of thousands of students aren’t taking advantage of it.
According to Helena Pernas, an executive director in the Department of Food and Nutrition, about 160,000 MDCPS students eat school lunch each day, amounting to a little less than half of the district’s 330,000 kids. Just 60,000 children get their breakfast from the school district.
MDCPS staff regularly try new recipes and retool their menus to try to make the meals more appetizing, with a focus on serving foods that appeal to the district’s ethnically diverse student body.
When it comes to adding — or axing — proposed menu items, the district turns to diners with specific tastes and discerning palates: its students.
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On a recent school day, dozens of students streamed into the cafeteria at Kinloch Park Middle School for an official taste test of potential new menu items.
They settled into their seats at a row of lunch tables set with plastic silverware and bottles of water — for cleansing the palate between courses.
Principal Sylvia Coto-Gonzalez gave the taste-testers their marching orders.
“First, how does it look,” Coto-Gonzalez said in Spanish. “Second, how does it feel in the mouth? And third, how do you like the flavor? Let’s go."
Enris Abarca and Alejandro Gomez are taking their jobs seriously. They’re in eighth grade. And along with 50 or so other students at Kinloch, they’re helping decide what the district should add to its menus.
“You gotta taste it,” Enris told Alejandro. “Like you gotta taste the flavor … taste it, come on.”
“Dale, dale,” Alejandro replied.
Up next — a beef and plantain empanada. Alejandro took a bite — and was less than impressed.
“What don’t you like about it?” Enris asked. “Be honest. What don’t you like about it?”
“I don’t like the mix,” Alejandro said.
“It just needs some ranch!” Enris declared.
The students logged their ratings of the new items through an online survey. The chicken wings were a hit. The barbecue pork patty… not so much.
That feedback will help district staff decide which foods will make the cut for the county’s 330,000 students.
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Providing food that’s appetizing — and nutritious — is key to powering the young minds in the nation's third-largest school district.
During the early years of the pandemic, federal emergency funds enabled every public school in the country to provide free meals to all students — but that funding expired in 2022.
Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, MDCPS qualified for a federal program that allows every student to eat breakfast and lunch for free, because so many of the district’s children are living in poverty. Still, thousands of students aren’t eating those meals.
“We know that a hungry child cannot learn,” Pernas said. “So we encourage all students to pass by the breakfast — even if it's for a quick breakfast — and pass by the lunch to get a healthy, nutritious breakfast and lunch at our schools.”
Still, images of square pizza and mushy peas continue to sour the reputation of school meals — and mean some students choose to go without.
Enris cleaned his plate this time, but he says he probably won’t be coming back for more school meals.
“It’s not that it won’t fill me up,” Enris said. “I just don’t like it.”
But the Kinloch cafeteria has its devotees — including eighth graders Khloe Aragon, Melanie Marrero and Lauriet Campos.
“I’m not picky. But, like, school lunches are really good,” said Khloe. “I like them sometimes more than my mom’s. But I can’t tell her that.”
The girls’ favorite? The cheese sticks.
Not the most nutritious, by any means, but it keeps them coming back.
