Food Service

For parents with busy morning schedules, it’s sometimes difficult to ensure that kids are eating a healthy breakfast before they head off to school. Children often aren’t ready to eat right after waking up, and it can be challenging to find nutritious breakfast foods they like. Some kids refuse breakfast at home and discover that they are hungry when they arrive at school. The School Breakfast Program provides a great option for parents.

As you may know, breakfast is offered for all students.  Studies have proven that kids who eat breakfast achieve higher academic scores, are more alert in class, visit the school nurse less often, and are better behaved in school. The Haysville Board of Education approved a Universal Free Breakfast program for the 2024-2025 school year.  The program provides all USD 261 students, regardless of their family's financial situation, with the option to eat breakfast each day school is in session for free. Families do not have to complete any paperwork for their children to participate in the free breakfast program.

 

Breakfast is Served!
Campus	7:30 AM
HMS	7:10 AM
HWMS	7:10 AM
Freeman	8:10 AM
Nelson	8:10 AM
Oatville	8:10 AM
Prairie	8:10 AM
Rex	8:10 AM
Ruth Clark	8:10 AM
Tri-City	7:30 AM
HHS	9:00 AM

What if my child has food allergies or dietary special needs, will you modify meals?

Federal regulations require the school to receive written instructions from an appropriate medical authority before the school can modify your child's meals. A recognized medical authority must complete one of the following forms to document your child's current special dietary needs.

All parents using the meal modification forms MUST contact Gina Lee, Director of Food Services, to set up an appointment to review the dietary needs of their students.

• Medical Statement to Request School Meal Modification for Student with Special Dietary Needs Due to Disability OR Food Allergy/Intolerance: If the student has a disability that affects his/her diet, a licensed physician must complete the form OR if the student has a food allergy or intolerance, a physician or other recognized medical authority (i.e. physician's assistant or nurse practitioner) must complete the form.
• Medical Discontinuation of School Meal Modifications Prescribed by a Medical Authority: If the student no longer needs meal modifications the form must be completed by a licensed medical authority.

The medical authority must list on the form all foods that are to be eliminated from the diet and foods that may be substituted.

The appropriate medical statement should be dated no earlier than July 1, 2025. To ensure your student's special dietary needs are met on the first day of school, the parent/guardian MUST contact Gina Lee, Director of Food Services, to make an appointment to go over the student's dietary needs for the 2025-26 school year. Contact Gina Lee at the Food Service office, 316-554-2219.

Important: Please sign the appropriate medical statement. If the school staff need additional information to clarify how to carry out the diet prescription, your signature is required for the physician or medical authority to share information with the school.

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School meals in Haysville USD 261 include more fruits, vegetables, and whole grain-rich foods; only fat-free or low-fat milk; "right-size" meals with portions designed for a child's age; and less saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium. The changes in school meals, the first in 15 years, are based on the latest nutritional guidelines. Changes to guidelines for meals served by schools across the country came from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and are funded by the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

Click below to see the Recipe Nutrient Composition-Summary.

The hallmark of my tenure as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to do right and feed everyone and I don’t intend for that to be just a hollow creed. This pledge is at the heart of our work, which includes our commitment to protecting the civil rights of all USDA employees and customers.

Doing right means treating all people equally, regardless of an individual’s race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), disability, age, genetic information, marital status, family/parental status, income derived from a public assistance program, political beliefs, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity, in any program or activity conducted or funded by USDA (not all bases apply to all programs). We are part of the same human family, imbued with dignity and worthy of respect. I expect every USDA employee to foster a workplace free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation so everyone can reach his or her full potential. Workplace harassment will not be tolerated, and managers and supervisors will correct the harassing conduct before it becomes severe or pervasive. Our workplace will be a model for proper enforcement of civil rights protections, not only because it’s the law, but also because it’s the right thing to do.

Equal employment opportunity covers all personnel/employment programs, management practices, and decisions, including, but not limited to, recruitment/hiring, merit promotion, transfer, reassignments, training and career development, benefits, and separation.

Feeding everyone means it doesn’t matter what you look like or where you come from, USDA programs are for you. Hunger knows no color or creed. Whether we are responding to disasters with food aid, cultivating sustainable agriculture programs overseas, or improving school meals here at home, at USDA we know food has the power to unite.

When you start with a simple expression of integrity and equality, upholding civil rights and all the freedoms enshrined in our laws is not just compulsory, it becomes intrinsic. For that reason and working together, we will continue to return to our touchstone: Do right … by everyone … and feed everyone.

Sonny Perdue - Secretary

Click below to view as PDF.

A supervisor may be hired by the board to oversee the district's food service program.

Sanitation Inspections:

The building principal shall inspect each lunchroom to ensure that proper sanitation procedures are being followed.

Records:

The supervisor shall be responsible for keeping food service records required by state and federal laws and regulations.

The supervisor shall be under the direct supervision of the superintendent and shall have control over all aspects of the district's food service programs subject to board policy, rules and state and federal regulations.

Meal Prices:

Meal prices shall be determined by the board.

Free and Reduced Price Meals

Parents or guardians of students attending schools participating in federal school meal programs must be informed of the availability of reimbursable school meals and provided with information about eligibility and the process for applying for free or reduced price meals on or before the start of school each year.  Access to this policy will be provided to parents or guardians when they receive information regarding eligibility and applying for free or reduced price meals. 

Unpaid Meal Charges

There will be no charge account established for students paying full or reduced price for meals provided by the District.  Therefore, once the student's meal account has been depleted below the purchase price of the student's portion of any meal or ala carte food item, the student will have insufficient funds to obtain additional school meals or ala carte food items until additional funds have been provided for this purpose.

Any student failing to keep his/her account solvent as required by the District shall not be allowed to charge further meals or to purchase food items that would result in a negative food account balance.  However, such students will be allowed to purchase a meal or food item if the student pays for the meal or item when it is received.  Students who have insufficient funds to purchase additional food in their account and cannot pay our of pocket for a meal will be provided an alternative meal.  

A written low-balance reminder will be sent to the student's parent or guardian when the student's account balance falls below $5.00  In the event a student's meal account has insufficient funds to purchase additional food items, written communication with information on the free/reduced application for consideration will be sent to the parent or guardian requesting payment.

While it is not the district's policy to allow a student's meal account to incur a negative balance, if the child qualifies for the free or reduced price meals and a negative balance exists, the negative balance will require payment per federal guidelines.  Parents or guardians may send meals with the student from home, but the negative balance will require payment.

if payment of any negative balance is not received within ten working days, the debt will be turned over to the superintendent or superintendent's designee for collection per board policy DP. If the debt is not paid within twenty days of mailing the final notice of the negative account balance under policy DP, it will be considered bad debt for the purposes of federal law concerning unpaid meal charges

Balances will be maintained in Mosaic, Power School and www.MySchoolBucks.com. Payments for school meals may be made at the school or online at www.myschoolbucks.com. Students, parents, or guardians of students are encouraged to prepay meal costs.

The District will provide a copy of account balances and meal charge policy to all households at or before the start of each school year and to families and students that transfer into the district at the time of transfer.  

The terms of this policy will be communicated to all district staff responsible for enforcing any aspect of the policy.  Records of how and when it is communicated to households and staff be we retained.

 

USD 261 is committed to providing school environments that promote and protect children’s health, well-being and ability to learn by supporting healthy eating, nutrition education, physical activity and integrated school based wellness.

District wellness guidelines are based upon recommendations from the Kansas State Department of Education’s Wellness Policy Guidelines (Board of Education Policy JGCA).

If you are interested in becoming a possible committee member, please contact Giliian Macias, Asst. Superintendent /Human Resources Dept. by email [email protected]