Creston schools desperate for food service staff

“We’re in a crisis right now in our food service department,” Creston School District Superintendent Deron Stender told the Creston School Board Monday at their December meeting. “We’re at such a risk of not being able to put food on a plate without going cold sandwiches or those types of things in emergency situations.”

The school district has been short two of its food service positions since the beginning of the year, but has been managing. Stender informed the board three food service staff members quit without notice in a one-week period.

“They just flat out quit that morning,” he said. “We don’t know until staff is showing up and they’re done.”

Stender said he as well as others have been pitching in where they can to ensure students are fed.

In addition to the five open positions, with seasonal viruses on the rise, Stender said they typically have two more unable to come in due to illness.

“Half of our food staff is gone on a daily basis,” he said. “That is my fear. I’m not worried about shortages in staff really, but if we lose another person or two in food service...”

Creston isn’t the only school facing this problem. At the start of the school year, Des Moines Public schools still had 29 available food service positions.

“We’re facing an educator crisis, not only the certified teachers that are in the classroom but our classified individuals as well,” said Mike Beranek, the President of the Iowa State Education Association. “Districts across the state are having difficulty finding bus drivers, folks to work in food nutrition as well as classroom teachers and the individuals who work one-on-one with our students.”

Stender said he has been looking into options to contract the food services out through a third party. “That’s not going to be the solution to our staffing problem. Everybody’s got this — it doesn’t matter whether you contract out or not. It’s still going to be a problem,” he clarified. “When we’ve been looking at this, we think they’ll have better capability to hopefully employ people.”

He hopes the holiday break will be enough time to get applicants and start hiring staff to fill the gaps, but they have been unsuccessful previously in filling the positions that have been open all year.

“I’ve kind of guided them to think about things you can make quick with the fewest amount of people,” Stender said. “It’s the best we can do given the situation that we’re in. It’s not what we want.”