Carryout Meal Frequently Asked Questions
Question:
Some school districts in the area are offering multiple days’ worth of carryout meals on one or two pick-up days each week. Why isn’t the Olathe school district doing this?
Answer:
Olathe schools have a unique challenge that other school districts in the area don't. The school kitchens were built around centralized food production systems. Unlike surrounding school districts, our school kitchens have very little storage space. The dry goods, freezer, and refrigerator space at our schools is sized to only accommodate the food and supplies needed for one day of our normal meal service. We must return unused food supplies at the end of each day to the Food Production Center to allow room for the next day's food delivery. We simply don't have the equipment, nor the space for the equipment, in the schools to allow for several days' worth of carryout breakfasts and lunches to be distributed from each school in addition to the in-school meals.
Question:
Why are the carryout meal pick-up locations being consolidated to the 10 middle schools on October 19?
Answer:
Due to the number of employees required to staff the in-school meal service at the elementary, middle, and high schools plus the number required for the carryout meal service, we simply don’t have the number of employees needed to continue to offer pick-up locations at each school. We have many open positions for which we’re currently recruiting. Job Postings
We know consolidating pick-up locations will be an additional hardship on some families. It's a decision we tried desperately to avoid but we simply don't have the number of staff it takes to continue having elementary schools as pick-up locations plus serve in-school meals at all schools.
