Teriyaki Chicken & Broccoli Stir‐Fry Over Whole Wheat Noodles

Stir‐Fried Fresh Vegetables w/Napa Cabbage & Bok Choy

Fresh Rotten Pear

All sounds pretty good. Well, aside from the last part. DCPS officials are complaining that their school meal contractor Chartwells has been delivering unsatisfactory meals “for some time.” From the Post:

“The expectation was that issues that we have struggled with in the past would be corrected and improved by now,” Glorious Bazemore, deputy chief procurement officer for the school system, wrote in a letter to Chartwells officials. “However, we have continued to struggle with daily problems that disrupt the rhythm of a regular school day.”

Problems include: Moldy breakfast bars (which the company denies), improperly portioned meals, and a failure to deliver breakfast to early childhood education classes. More troubling than that, however, is that Chancellor Kaya Henderson points out the $32 million-a-year contract itself is a problem: DCPS is required to pay for every meal provided by Chartwells, whether or not a student buys it.

The contract is up at the end of the school year, giving DCPS an opportunity to find a (hopefully) better provider of student meals. Then again, considering how bad this city is at properly awarding contracts, who knows?

Photo by whitneybee via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License