Millions of meals are served in Great Falls Public Schools each year.

Jessa Youngers oversees that process and in recent years has become familiar with crisis management, district officials said, as she oversaw the district food service program through the COVID pandemic and the recent salmonella outbreak.

On Jan. 24, Youngers gave the board her annual food service report and said the district participates in the National School Lunch Program, which is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and non-profit private schools and residential childcare facilities.

Cucumbers identified as likely source of salmonella outbreak

The program was established under President Harry Truman in 1946 and provides “nutritionally balanced, low-cost or no-cost lunches to children each school day,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The program is offered at all GFPS schools and the school breakfast program is offered at 18 of 21 schools.

Amie Thompson, school board member, asked if the breakfast in the classroom program helped with with school attendance.

Youngers said that she couldn’t speak to attendance, but that it normalized breakfast at school and reduced the stigma of eating breakfast in the classroom or at school.

Youngers said district offers a summer food services and served 15,214 meals last summer, down about 700 from the previous year.

CCHD, GFPS continuing to investigate salmonella outbreak; source undetermined

She said they were disappointed with the drop in participation, but are advocating to have the district be designated as rural within the program, that is partially federally funded, to have more program flexibility.

Three cities in Montana aren’t designated rural, Great Falls, Billings and Missoula, she said.

If designated rural, the district would be able to serve breakfast for tomorrow with lunch for today and Youngers said she believed that would increase participation.

Her office took over management of the Park Pals summer program, in collaboration with Get Fit Great Falls through a United Way grant, which was a “major undertaking,” Youngers said.

In July and August, the program averaged 73-105 students daily, with a total of 964 student interactions during those two months, Youngers said.

GFPS approves milk, paper contracts [2024]

They’re looking at collaborating with AWARE this summer.

The school breakfast program is in 18 of 21 schools and the only elementary without it is Morningside. Youngers said they’re working to implement the program in that school and expecting to see an increase in participation.

Last school year, the district served 1,384,555 total meals through the National School Lunch/Breakfast programs.

That’s consistent with pre-COVID numbers, Youngers said, and that’s 7,673 average daily meals, as of December.

Her office is also addressing unpaid meal charges, which totaled $81,837 as of Jan. 17.

She said they’re going through the notification process of Wednesday envelope flyers, electronic notifications twice weekly and they explored the option of certified letters.

GFPS adjusts student meal prices [2024]

Youngers said they know the notifications work because her office fields angry phone calls.

Of those who owed more than $250 as of Nov. 4, 2024, there were 51 students owing $25,089.69 and a significant portion of the debt is held by a small number of students, she told the school board.

Youngers said in the certified letters, they asked families to apply for the free and reduced lunch program, pay on their account, or call her office to set up a payment plan.

Of the certified letters sent to those 51 accounts, 17 received the letters, four called the office, five submitted free and reduced applications but weren’t all qualified, there were 11 transactions on accounts, but 33 of 51 accounts hadn’t been addressed, she said.

Her office sent letters again in mid-January and “we’ll keep chipping away,” Youngers said.

GFPS increases cost of adult breakfast and lunch meals [2019]

She also have the board an update on her office’s role in investigating the salmonella outbreak last fall.

Once there were confirmed positive cases, her office provided student transactions lists, production records with everything on the service line, invoices and environmental assessments, “looking for something that could indicate where salmonella was introduced or how it spread,” Youngers said.

She was confident it hadn’t originated in GFPS buildings and worked with the City-County Health Department to determine where it came from.

Youngers said they believe the salmonella was introduced on Oct. 29 and the first case was reported eight days later at Riverview Elementary, she said. Cases followed at Valley View and Sacagawea elementaries.

Through a lengthy process, it was determined that cucumbers were the likely cause of the outbreak, and they were pre-packaged and distributed to GFPS. The cucumbers were part of a multi-state salmonella outbreak.

Cucumbers were just added back to school menus in mid-January and Youngers said students had never been so excited to have cucumbers, which are second to carrots in popularity in GFPS schools, she said.

The salmonella outbreak caused drops in average daily school meal participation and the district had to dispose of about 5,000 pounds of produce at a loss of about $7,000.