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What’s on school menus this fall?

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By CANDICE CHOI AP Food & Health Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — School lunch menus already have Meatless Mondays and Taco Tuesdays. Now some may get Trade Mitigation Thursdays.

This fall, some U.S. school cafeterias are expecting shipments of free food, one little known consequence of President Donald Trump’s trade disputes. The products are coming from the Department of Agriculture, which is giving away the $1.2 billion in foods it’s buying to help farmers hurt by trade negotiations.

A teacher lines up the students for school-prepared lunches at Madison Crossing Elementary School in Canton, Miss., Friday, Aug. 9, 2019. Scott Clements, director of child nutrition at the Mississippi education department, said they’ve ordered two truckloads of trade mitigation pulled pork and four loads of kidney beans for use in their cafeterias. The products are coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is giving away the foods it’s buying to help farmers hurt by trade negotiations. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

A Maryland district is awaiting a truckload of canned kidney beans — one of several “trade mitigation” items schools were offered.

“We make our own chili soup, so we knew we had a use for that,” said Barbara Harral, a nutrition official for Montgomery County Public Schools.

All told, she said the district is getting $70,000 worth of free products for the fall, including apples and oranges. Harral, who has been with the district for 22 years, doesn’t recall the USDA offering trade mitigation foods before.

The USDA has long purchased and distributed agricultural products to help farmers, who can face swings in supply and demand in any given year. But the agency is buying even more as a result of Trump’s trade fight, which prompted other countries to take retaliatory actions that curb imports of American farm products.

That’s resulting in an unusual bounty for the groups that get government foods, showing one way federal policies influence what people eat.

According to the USDA, most food purchased as part of trade-relief efforts is going to programs that help the needy. The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, for instance, says it’s getting roughly twice as much government food as normal, including rarely donated items like pistachios. Though they may struggle to handle the sudden deluge, food banks say they’re generally happy for the bounty.

The USDA says schools are only getting a tiny slice of trade mitigation foods, accounting for a majority of the $27 million of products ordered for child nutrition programs. But at a national convention for school cafeteria employees this summer, agency officials noted the program is expected to continue with additional items.

Already, schools are entitled to annual allotments of USDA foods based on how many students they serve through the national school lunch program. But cafeteria officials who operate on tight budgets say they have always welcomed the “bonus” foods the agency offered in the past, even if the market forces that make the products available isn’t always clear.

One year, they recall there was bonus almond butter, long before it was popular. Another year, there were frozen catfish pieces.

“At the time, we didn’t have a way to use them,” Harral of Montgomery County said of the catfish.

In the last couple years, the USDA said it hasn’t really offered bonus foods to schools, instead diverting them to programs for the needy. That’s making the trade mitigation items that much more of a treat for school food officials.

“The room lights up when everyone knows we’ve got new items that are coming,” said Scott Clements, director of child nutrition at the Mississippi education department, which ordered two truckloads of trade mitigation pulled pork and four loads of kidney beans.

Still, putting bonus foods to use can be tricky for schools, which plan menus far in advance and have to consider factors like procurement contracts and warehouse capacities. Such limitations are likely why schools didn’t take full advantage of the $100 million in trade mitigation foods they were offered for the fall, according to the USDA.

In Alaska, officials only ordered a half truck of free kidney beans.

“There’s only so many ways you can use them,” said Sue Lampert, a school food official for the state.

With Trump rollback, school lunch could get more white bread

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By CANDICE CHOI AP Food & Health Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Is white bread about to make a comeback on school lunch menus?

After complaints about taste and costs, the Trump administration rolled back a rule that required foods like pasta and bread be made with whole grains. The cafeteria directors who lobbied for the change say they just want greater flexibility to serve foods like white bread — which are more processed and have less fiber — when whole grains don’t work.

In this Friday, April 5, 2019 photo, a student buys lunch in the cafeteria at Burlington High School in Burlington on, Vt. The school’s food service provider is preparing to comply with a Trump administration decision to roll back a rule that required only whole-grain rich foods for school meals. Burlington officials said they don’t plan on abandoning whole-grain foods, but it gives them flexibility. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring)

In Vermont, the relaxed rule means white rice will be served with beans again. In Oregon, macaroni and cheese may return. And in South Dakota, students may notice a change with their soup.

“The staff asked right away, ‘Oh my God, can we go back to the other saltines?'” said Gay Anderson, a school lunch director and president of the School Nutrition Association, which represents cafeteria operators and suppliers like Domino’s and Kellogg.

The rollback addresses rules on grains, milk and salt championed by former first lady Michelle Obama.

Since 2014, schools had been required to serve only whole grain versions of food as part of the national school lunch program, a critical source of free and reduced-price meals for millions of children. The idea is that whole grains would be more nourishing and help cultivate healthy habits amid alarming obesity rates .

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is among the parties suing over the rollback, notes the standards were based on the government’s own dietary guidelines and that most schools were successfully meeting them.

But cafeteria operators said costs were higher, cooking was more difficult and students were throwing away more food. The School Nutrition Association said it’s more important that children who rely on the lunches eat something, and that the rule ignored cultural preferences, such as for flour tortillas in the Southwest or for white rice among Asian students.

To ease the transition to whole grains, the U.S. Department of Agriculture let schools apply for temporary waivers to serve select dishes that didn’t meet the whole-grain rule. For the last school year, it said about 20 percent of districts asked permission to serve refined grains that are enriched to add back some nutrients.

Among the frequently waived foods were pasta , pizza , tortillas and biscuits , which one Georgia lunch official joked affects the “tests scores of rednecks ,” according to records obtained by The Associated Press from state agencies. Other waived foods included beignets, cinnamon rolls, corn dogs, sugar cookies and Pop Tarts.

One district requested a waiver for croissants because it said students don’t like the whole-grain version.

“Plus they are 20 cents more per serving,” the district said.

Then in December, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the USDA was going back to the old standard: At least half of grain foods must be rich in whole grains. The agency said that does away with the red tape of making schools get waivers, and gives schools more flexibility to offer wholesome meals that also reduce food waste.

Whitney Ellersick, a school lunch director in Portland, Oregon, said the change means her district will no longer need a waiver for its lasagna. But she was surprised by the extent of the rollback.

“I was a little shocked to see it go to 50 percent,” Ellersick said.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said the USDA’s rollback may be halting progress made by schools, which could be tempted to bring back more refined grains that cost less or are easier to make. Already, the group notes the USDA defines “whole grain rich” as being half whole grain, meaning there’s built-in wiggle room to make bread and pasta students won’t mind.

Bettina Elias Siegel of The Lunch Tray website also noted a recent USDA report that found that “plate waste” was comparable before and after the rules were implemented in 2014, undermining arguments they were prompting students to throw away more food.

The report also found that students took advantage of lunches more often in schools with healthier lunches.

The American Heart Association likewise criticized the decision to relax the rules and called on school districts to stick to the previous standards, which also included stricter rules on salt and milk. Among the districts that plan to do so is Boston, where fifth grader Trinity Wilson likes the brown rice.

She said it’s is healthier than white rice. “I know that because my mom told me,” Wilson said.

But some school lunch officials say the rollback could help smaller districts that don’t have access to as many products. In Arkansas, students in the Magnet Cove district accepted whole-grain Pop Tarts and other changes, officials say, but still prefer the old noodles, biscuits and rolls.

“They’re tastier, softer and fluffier,” said Danny Thomas, the district’s superintendent.

In Burlington, Vermont, white rice and beans can return to menus. Doug Davis, the district’s food director and incoming president of the School Nutrition Association, said it’s a healthy dish that students will actually eat.

To avoid buying two types of rice, Davis said white rice will likely also be used in stir fries and soups. He plans to stick mostly to whole grains, but he appreciates not having to.

Whole-grain pasta isn’t ideal for mac and cheese, Davis noted.

“Would we make a change on that? I don’t know,” he said.

Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Kansas teen to get high school, Harvard diplomas in 1 month

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ULYSSES, Kan. (AP) — A 16-year-old Kansas boy will soon earn his high school diploma — and a few days later he’ll travel to Harvard to collect his bachelor’s degree.

Ulysses High School senior Braxton Moral will attend both commencement ceremonies in May, becoming the only student to successfully pursue a four-year high school degree and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard at the same time, The Hutchinson News reported .

Ulysses High School senior Braxton Moral sits for a portrait at the school in Ulysses, Kan., on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. The 16-year old said his fellow students at the high school often treat him just like any other student, although they do like to tease him about his expected graduation from Harvard University a few weeks before he graduates from high school. Moral works on his Harvard studies three hours each day at high school. He also participates in other school activities such as weights, scholars bowl, debate and tennis. (Sandra J. Milburn/The Hutchinson News via AP)

Harvard has changed the rules, Braxton’s father Carlos Moral said, so his son will “the one and only” reaching that milestone. Braxton Moral will be 17 when he gets his diplomas.

Carlos Moral said they began to realize their son was special when he was in the third grade.

“They told us: ‘You need to do something. He’s not just gifted. He’s really, really gifted,'” he said.

Braxton Moral skipped the fourth grade.

The Ulysses school district allowed him to take some high school classes while he was still in middle school. Before high school he took a class offered at Fort Hays State University. Then he was admitted into Harvard.

Braxton Moral simultaneously studied at the high school and the Harvard Extension School. The program typically serves adults who work and can’t attend classes on campus full time.

Ulysses High School math teacher Patsy Love served as the proctor for the Harvard program, administering Moral’s tests in Kansas. Moral spent the summer before his junior year at Harvard’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“We constantly are monitoring Braxton to make sure he is not too overwhelmed,” said Julie Moral, Braxton Moral’s mother. “No achievement is worth him being unhappy.”

Braxton Moral is on track to graduate from the Bachelor of Liberal Arts program, with a major government and a minor in English, said Harry Pierre, associate director of communications for Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education.

Braxton Moral said he hopes to attend Harvard Law School next.

“Politics is end game for me,” he said, though he’s still too young to vote.

Child abuse climbs after Friday report cards, study says

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(AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

Child abuse increases the day after school report cards are released — but only when kids get their grades on a Friday, a study in Florida suggests.

The curious finding startled researchers, who had figured abuse might go up regardless of the specific day kids got their grades.

But their study of reports to a child abuse hotline that included broken bones, burns and other confirmed abuse found otherwise. An increase only occurred on Saturdays after a report-card Friday. Though overall rates were small, there were almost four times more cases on those Saturdays than on other Saturdays. No apparent connection between report cards and abuse was found on other days of the week.

“Anecdotally, we know a lot of parents will spank their children or use corporal punishment if they’re unsatisfied with their school work,” said University of Florida psychologist Melissa Bright, the lead author.

That punishment may become abusive when kids don’t have school the next day and parents think injuries might be more likely to go unnoticed, the researchers said, noting that teachers are required to report suspected child abuse. Or, it could be that severe punishment is less likely on weekdays when parents are too busy to focus on report cards, Bright said,

But she acknowledged those theories are speculation and that the findings aren’t proof.

The study was published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

The researchers reviewed calls to a Florida child abuse hotline and school report card release dates in most of Florida’s 67 counties during the 2015-2016 academic year. Nearly 2,000 cases of physical abuse in kids aged 5 to 11, confirmed by child welfare authorities, were included.

There was an average of slightly more than 0.6 cases of abuse per 100,000 children on Saturdays after a report-card Friday compared with slightly less than 0.2 cases per 100,000 children on other Saturdays. The average was less than one per day because so many days were included in the analysis. But in a state like Florida, with a school-age population of just over 3 million kids, this could amount to 19 cases of report card-related abuse compared to 5 on other Saturdays, the researchers said.

Outside experts noted study limitations, including no evidence that kids who were abused had received poor grades and no information on when parents first learned of kids’ grades. But they said the study was useful for highlighting that child abuse and corporal punishment are still too common even though rates have declined since the 1990s. Rates were 9 per 1,000 U.S. kids in 2016 compared with 13 per 1,000 in 1990.

Dr. Robert Sege, a Boston pediatrician and Tufts University professor of medicine, said bad grades should be a time for parents to find out what’s causing their childrens’ struggles. “There’s no place for corporal punishment for school failure because it doesn’t work and misses the point.”

Sege is lead author of an American Academy of Pediatrics policy update released last month that recommends against corporal punishment and spanking.

An editorial published with study said the United States deserves a C-minus “for effective discipline strategies.”

Changing a report card release day may reduce some abuse, the editorial said, “but it will not solve the larger issue: It is still socially acceptable to hit a child to correct their behavior.”

Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner. Her work can be found here .

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

More sleep in Seattle: Later school start helps kids get zzz

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By CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP Medical Writer

SEATTLE (AP) — High school students are getting more sleep in Seattle, say scientists studying later school start times.

Teenagers wore activity monitors to find out whether a later start to the school day would help them get more sleep. It did, adding 34 minutes of slumber a night. They also reported less daytime sleepiness, and grades improved.

The Seattle School District changed from a 7:50 a.m. start time to 8:45 a.m. in the fall of 2016 for high schools and most middle schools, joining dozens of other U.S. school districts adopting later starts to help sleep-deprived teens.

Teenagers’ nightly sleep has decreased and most adolescents don’t get the recommended nine hours. One culprit: Light from devices that many teens use to chat, post and scroll long after dark.

Senior Hazel Ostrowski attends her first period AP statistics class at Franklin High School Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, in Seattle. High school students are getting more sleep in Seattle, according to a study on later school start times. Ostrowski was among a group at Franklin and another Seattle high school who wore activity monitors to discover whether a later start to the school day would help them get more sleep. It did, adding 34 minutes of slumber a night, and they reported less daytime sleepiness and grades improved. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Franklin High School senior Hazel Ostrowski, who took part in the study, said sleeping later makes it easier to pay attention during class but she still struggles sometimes.

“I’ll wake up so tired I wish I could go back to sleep. At night, I’ll be on my phone and I just want to stay up,” she said.

Researchers worked with science teachers at two high schools to find out if students got more sleep after the change or simply stayed up later. Over two years, they recruited 178 sophomores to wear wristwatch-like monitors for two weeks to track activity and light exposure. Results were published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

The scientists compared sleep habits of sophomores in spring 2016, before the change, to sleep habits of sophomores from spring 2017, after later start times went into effect.

Some measures held steady. Naps and weekend sleep schedules didn’t change. On school nights, only a few students stayed up later, not enough to greatly budge the average.

What changed was wakeup time, with morning activity starting about 45 minutes later on school days. Combined with a slight shift to later bedtimes for a few, the average sleep duration increased by 34 minutes.

Put another way, morning wakeup time shifted from 6:24 a.m. to 7:08 a.m. Falling asleep shifted only a tad, from 11:27 p.m. to 11:38 p.m.

“Given all the pressures keeping our teenagers awake in the evening — screen time, social media — this is a great thing to see,” said Horacio de la Iglesia, a University of Washington biology professor who led the study.

Digging deeper, researchers analyzed schoolwide data on first-period punctuality and attendance. Of the two high schools, the one in a more affluent area showed no difference year to year. But the school in a poorer area had less tardiness and fewer absences after the change, a hint that later start times could help with socioeconomic learning gaps, the researchers said.

Exam scores and other grades in the science classes increased year to year by a small margin, but the authors acknowledge that teachers’ views on the later start time could have unconsciously boosted the grades they gave.

Most U.S. middle and high schools start before 8:30 a.m., contrary to an American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation, said University of Minnesota researcher Kyla Wahlstrom, who studies the issue.

School districts resist, she said, because later start times disrupt bus schedules and sports practices, and rob parents of afternoon teenage baby sitters to watch younger kids.

Prior studies relied on students recalling how much they slept. This was the largest to use a stronger measure, the wearable monitor, she said.

Bringing the research into classrooms made it a learning experience for students, Wahlstrom said, “a brilliant way to do it.”

Follow AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson on Twitter: @CarlaKJohnson

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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