The Heartbeat of a School District: Maintenance, Transportation, and Nutrition
Aug 11, 2023Season 1Episode 2
Superintendent Mark Kopp
What if you could peek behind the curtains of a thriving school district and learn about the unsung heroes who make it all possible? Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing in this episode of FCS Unscripted! As your host, Superintendent Mark Kopp, I’m taking you on a tour of Franklin County Schools' first week back. Hear about the remarkable work of our transportation and maintenance departments, the bus drivers, mechanics, monitors, and our diligent custodians who all contributed to making our students' journey to school safe, efficient, and memorable.
We're also turning the spotlight on the impressive work of our Food and Nutrition Department, where we chat with our very own Christie Pritchett, Director of Food and Nutrition Services. She's the genius behind our summer feeding program, which served an astounding 76,000 meals! Christie gives us an insight into her role, ensuring that every student gets a nutritious, healthy meal. We also discuss a significant legislative development aimed at strengthening access to a federal program that lets qualifying schools offer meals for free to all students. So, strap in and join us as we celebrate our accomplishments and anticipate an exciting school year ahead.
What if you could peek behind the curtains of a thriving school district and learn about the unsung heroes who make it all possible? Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing in this episode of FCS Unscripted! As your host, Superintendent Mark Kopp, I’m taking you on a tour of Franklin County Schools' first week back. Hear about the remarkable work of our transportation and maintenance departments, the bus drivers, mechanics, monitors, and our diligent custodians who all contributed to making our students' journey to school safe, efficient, and memorable.
We're also turning the spotlight on the impressive work of our Food and Nutrition Department, where we chat with our very own Christie Pritchett, Director of Food and Nutrition Services. She's the genius behind our summer feeding program, which served an astounding 76,000 meals! Christie gives us an insight into her role, ensuring that every student gets a nutritious, healthy meal. We also discuss a significant legislative development aimed at strengthening access to a federal program that lets qualifying schools offer meals for free to all students. So, strap in and join us as we celebrate our accomplishments and anticipate an exciting school year ahead.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to FCS Unscripted, a new podcast for one team, fcs, where we look at the stories behind every one in Franklin County schools. Hello everyone and welcome to FCS Unscripted. I am your host, superintendent Mark Kopp, and I am so pleased to be speaking with you all again today. This is episode two of our podcast, and this podcast is now available on all formats, basically wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple, spotify, amazon, pretty much everywhere. Please subscribe, as we will drop new episodes each week.
Speaker 1:
And speaking of weeks, what a great first week of school we just had. I'm so excited that you know being able to see our kiddos back again, and I gotta say our transportation department deserves huge kudos and thanks for their work that they did this week. All buses have delivered all children safely to school and back home, and they've done so in a very efficient way. On the second day of school, for instance, our buses were clear by five oh eight pm, and that is fantastic for the first week of school. I think everyone has seen the news that Jefferson County had earlier this week. All school districts try to avoid those things as much as possible and we really feel for our friends in Jefferson County and we hope they get their situations worked out, and it just goes to show how challenging it is to schedule transportation and to run it in an efficient way. So we are blessed to have Brad McKinney and Tanya Case and all of the folks in our transportation department, our bus monitors, our bus drivers, our mechanics. They all do an amazing job. It's also been great, as I mentioned, seeing all the kids again, just seeing their smiling faces. Just a great deal of positive energy in all of our schools. So the schools themselves have just looked amazing too. So huge thank you to our maintenance department and our custodians. They make our buildings and grounds look wonderful and they just looked amazing. And thanks to all who assisted at school. So we know we had a lot of community support in some of our schools with landscaping, mulching, et cetera. So a big thanks to them as well.
Speaker 1:
We had the opportunity today to be the host for a press conference announcing a new piece of legislation being filed in the General Assembly in the upcoming session, cosponsored by Senator Chambers, armstrong and Representative. All the legislation would strengthen access to a federal program that helps qualified schools provide meals to every student for free. Now, as a district that's been benefiting from this program. Our district was chosen to host this press conference today and that program, by the way, is called the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, and we've benefited from this for the last several years. So our district was chosen to announce this potentially game-changing legislation. The press conference itself specifically took place at Peaks Mill Elementary School, and we're very excited about the potential for this legislation. I want to thank Peaks Mill for hosting and Principal Cassie House for speaking. It was a really great press conference. And again, just to mention that, once again this year, all students in Franklin County Schools are eligible to receive free breakfasts and lunches every day, no matter what school they attend. This legislation that was mentioned in the press conference would help expand the CEP program all across the state, and providing a nutritious breakfast and lunch is one of the most important things that we do in schools, so we're very proud to be able to offer this benefit already to our students.
Speaker 1:
As such, we're going to focus this podcast on our food and nutrition department. We will have a fun fact in just a moment that focuses on this area. We may even have a bonus one, and we will be interviewing Kristi Pritchett, our Director of Food and Nutrition Services. Again, I want to give a very sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of our employees, our amazing students and our families for such a great first week of school. The focus on hashtag everyone is apparent across the district, so thank you all.
Speaker 1:
Oh, and that horn means it's time for our fun fact, and today we have a bonus fun fact for you as well. So our fun fact this week did you know that during the summer this year our summer feeding program served 76,348 meals? Can you imagine? 76, over 76,000 meals during the summer? Just absolutely amazing. So proud of our food and nutrition department. And just for a fun bonus fun fact for the first three days of school does anyone have any idea how many apples that we served as a school district? That's a good, good question. I don't know that many people would ask that, but we served 4,554 apples over these first few days, over these first three days of the school year. So you know what they say about an apple a day might be a little on the low end.
Speaker 1:
So very excited for all the all that our food and nutrition department is doing for our kiddos. And because of that, we're going to interview our director of food and nutrition. Her name is Christy Pritchett and that interview is coming up in just one moment. Welcome back to the podcast. We are very excited today to be interviewing Christy Pritchett. Christy is our director of food and nutrition services. Welcome, christy.
Speaker 2:
Hey Mr Cobb, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:
Ah, fantastic. We're excited for the school year getting started and we're especially excited for the fact that we provide free lunches and breakfasts for every student. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. So, christy, let's start off. You oversee food and nutrition services for the district. Explain what you do in those areas to help improve student success.
Speaker 2:
So one thing I do is I plan out all the menus, make sure they're under the federal guidelines and regulations, I make sure the cost and everything is in the group, make sure, basically, that every kid gets a a nutritious, healthy meal with many choices.
Speaker 1:
Awesome and I've seen those choices and they're really good.
Speaker 2:
They're very good.
Speaker 1:
Last year you instituted bringing in salads and charcuterie boxes which explain what that is, because that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:
So there's several different choices. So the charcuterie is just like the charcuterie board that you would see at all these parties and stuff. It has grapes and cheese and egg and, you know, celery, apple slices, just different little thing that makes it a reimbursable meal. And then we have like a fruit parfait or a lunchable and one thing the kids love the lunchables. It's basically what you would see at the grocery store with Doritos, pepperonis. Just tons of different things.
Speaker 1:
Sure, well, we get a lot of very positive feedback on the food that we're now serving. That was one of the things that I asked you when we hired you is we got to make this taste good, so been very pleased with where we're. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
So one thing is quality. So you know it, just spend a little bit more and the kids will love it.
Speaker 1:
I love it. So tell us about your staff. All of the cooks and the nutrition managers in the schools, Talk about your staff.
Speaker 2:
So it's basically the best staff in Kentucky.
Speaker 1:
That's right.
Speaker 2:
So our managers are rocking it, and so are our cook bakers. I have an assistant director, which is Joe Biggs, and administrative assistant, which is Donna Smith, and we work as a team. So there's not one individually person that makes this nutrition services work. It is the team. So, down to the cook baker, we all rock it out.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome and we took part today in a press conference that there's two legislators who are proposing a bill that will expand CEP usage across the state and we know what the CEP program is. But can you talk a little bit about what that is to our audience and tell them you know it's provisions and so CEP is community eligibility provision, and what it is is.
Speaker 2:
It is where we have a needy group of people that are needing food, basically the income. So what the? What they're proposing is for all to eat free, and that's what we need. We don't need just to hone in on one community, we need a whole state, because when you put those numbers together, we are a needy state.
Speaker 1:
And we as a district are blessed and fortunate that we've been part of the CEP program for the last few years. We want everyone to know, and I think most people do know this, but we provide free breakfasts and lunches to every one of our students in our district.
Speaker 2:
Everyone, and not only that, most districts don't do options. So, like even at breakfast, you have multiple choices and eventually in the next three or four weeks we'll sit down and look is that? We have a program now that lets us know if that item is something the kids want to eat and if not, we're going to change it, sure.
Speaker 1:
So Well, so if I can ask you, what is the best part of your job?
Speaker 2:
The kids. Yeah, so I will tell you that that was one of the hardest things is not knowing every kid when I started working here. So I am always out into the schools. I want to know every single kid in our district and I'm starting to learn them. I love hearing Miss Pritchett.
Speaker 1:
That's great, and you had one today.
Speaker 2:
Actually, you were telling the story over at Peaks Mill when we met, so it was at ELV it was at ELV this morning Joe and I went over to help with some logistics of because you know, we have a lot of students and every year that number either decrease or increase, according to what it is, you know. So it was the sweetest thing. I was waiting for one student to come in and I hear this little girl on the back. She was coming through where the buses come, through the door and she's like I'm hungry this morning I'm ready for food.
Speaker 2:
You know some. You know it was just the sweetest thing that she knew that she was going to get food this morning.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and today was like bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. Why wasn't I invited?
Speaker 2:
I know.
Speaker 1:
That's great. So we asked about the best part. What's the most challenging part of your job?
Speaker 2:
The most challenging part is probably, um, well, probably the finances. So making sure that I can offer everything that I feel like the kids need, making sure the equipment works, making sure my staff is paid well, all into the money that we receive. And we are doing that and I promise, I promise my staff every day. We are working to our better. Pay, little bits at a time.
Speaker 1:
And very pleased with where the last six of the last seven years we've given a 2% pay raise in our district and we're very pleased and will continue to push for better wages for all our employees. That's very important.
Speaker 2:
And then another thing is is that when we started school this year we only had one three and a half hour position opened. Last year we had like 10, 14 opens, you know, like empty positions. And so when we started this year, it was nice to see all the kitchens full.
Speaker 1:
I think that's a testament to the culture that you're building and the pay that we're providing. That's right. So if you had to pick out one goal for the year, what would that be?
Speaker 2:
Feeding more kids. Making sure our kids are happy and fed well, Full bellies make a better day for everybody.
Speaker 1:
So and you know that's something that our public can help us with. You know we're providing high quality, nutritious, good tasting meals, and it would be. You know we really need to push for all of our families to. You know, let our kids know You're getting a really good choice here. Make sure you take advantage of it.
Speaker 2:
That's right. And there's so many choices Like, even if Susie didn't like the hot item, she might like a code item, and just given that opportunity for them to come through the line, sure Well now we're going to shift to the part of the interview where we get a little philosophical slash.
Speaker 1:
We're going to learn a little bit more about you and you're going to hear this oh, that means it's fun fact time with Kristie Pritchett. So fun facts. I've got four questions for you. Number one what is your favorite food?
Speaker 2:
Your food would probably be right now. It's ice cream. I'll be honest, it's hot. I like ice cream.
Speaker 1:
That's my wife, 100%. Yep, yeah, she loves the ice cream. All right, so what is your favorite movie of all time?
Speaker 2:
Probably Sweet Home Alabama.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's a good one. All right, that's Reese Witherspoon. Yes, okay, yeah, all right, I remember. So what's your favorite TV show or streaming?
Speaker 2:
show. So I'm a Hallmark girl, so anything Hallmark and I'm a Disney girl Okay, anything Disney. So basically that's all I watched.
Speaker 1:
All right, what the Hallmark Christmas movies?
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
Oh, yeah, yeah. We're, I think, about 70 days away from the Hallmark Christmas movies coming back. So and last question, this is a tough one what is your favorite music group or music performer?
Speaker 2:
I'm a Swifty, so I have to say that my family has been on the waiting list for the fourth time. Wow, but we're going to get it. We're going to get it.
Speaker 1:
I was in schools this morning and one of the one of the employees was has been trying to get Taylor Swift tickets. It's a. It's a phenomenon. Yes, it's crazy so well. Christy, I sure appreciate you taking your time. I know it's very busy the first week of school. We appreciate you the wonderful job that you and your staff are doing. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
We appreciate you. We love it here. Thank you.
Speaker 1:
All right, have a great one, thanks. Well, that wraps it up for this week's episode of FCS Unscripted. Thank you for listening in and I encourage you to subscribe and follow this weekly podcast, where we will share updates, information and interviews with hashtag everyone the wonderful students and staff who make up one team FCS. Have a great week, everybody.