Administration costs for lunches fall on schools

The new model of school lunch deliveries is creating extra costs for large high schools, despite interim funding, says Vaughan Couillault, president of the Secondary Principals Association of New Zealand (SPANZ).

In the previous iteration of the Ka Ora, Ka Ako lunch programme, meals were delivered directly to students by the providers. Now, meals are delivered straight to schools, which means schools with larger rolls need to self-organise distribution and clean-up.  

Couillault, Principal of Papatoetoe High School, says larger schools find they need additional staff to take on administrative tasks associated with the lunch programme. 

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At Papatoetoe High School, 1600 meals needed to be sorted into 70 boxes, handed out and then collected, says Couillault. The collection is necessary as the metal boxes are returned to the School Lunch Collective for recycling. Currently, Couillault employs five people working four hours a day to help with the administration association with the programme. Although Couillault expects the cost of this labour to reduce once the programme is well established, he says the cost of this administration is not funded.  

Currently, his school receives $210 of interim funding until the end of Term Two, which does not cover the required hours.  

“The reduced cost to provide lunch assistance is shifted back onto the big schools,” says Couillault.  

“We value the programme, it’s great, and we understand there could have been some fat taken out of the system in terms of funding previously, but I don’t think we can continue to overlook the distribution and clean-up costs that schools are going to have to bear themselves.” 

Principal Ngaire Ashmore of Auckland Girls’ Grammar has similarly found that funding does not match the required labour from staff.  

Sean Teddy, Ministry of Education hautū operations and integration said schools with a roll of 350 or more had received additional funding to pay for staff assistance with distributing lunches.  

“The ministry will work with schools and continue to assess how we can best support the distribution of meals in future.”