It's 'controlled chaos' when you eat lunch at school

In our quest to get our first-grader to eat better we turned to McDonald's for help.

We made a deal with 7-year-old Mary Horn. We told her that if she drank one glass of milk, and ate one fruit and one vegetable for 10 days that Mom would deliver a Happy Meal to school for at lunch time.

Mary loved the plan. She managed to consume one glass of milk, a banana, apple or some grapes, and two baby carrots for 10 days.

And on Tuesday, I arrived at Fearn Elementary School in North Aurora with a plain cheeseburger and fries and a Littlest Pet Shop toy.

I even squeezed into the lunch bench and ate my own fruit yogurt with Mary and the others in Mrs. Talkington's first-graders as they ate lunch at 11 a.m.

I took this opportunity to chat with Mary's classmates and check out Fearn's lunch program. I have a few comments as a parent.

First, the kids do not have enough time to eat. They hustle in (most of them eat with their coats and hats on ready for recess) and are hustled out after 20 minutes.

Second, the lunchroom is loud. Or perhaps I am just not used to 100 kids chattering at once.

Third, the women serving the lunches every day are fantastic.

Oh, there's one more thing I noticed; only a couple of kids actually managed to say "thank you" to the lunch servers.

Amid all the controlled chaos, Agnes Fron manages to serve balanced meals to half of the 600 some Fearn students every day.

She reports that nachos, chicken nuggets and cheese pizza are Fearn favorites on the menu.

Fron has been the lunch lead at Fearn since the school opened nine years ago. She was the lunch leader at Goodwin Elementary School for five years before that.

"This was the perfect job for me when my kids were in school at Goodwin," Fron said. "When they started high school my husband said I should stay on. Now they finished college and I'm still here."

The students enter the cafeteria/gym from two different door and form two lines at the serving area.

Server Michele Shamley, of Aurora, listens and watches at the children hold up one finger or two so she knows how many tortillas they want with their tacos.

While I watched, most of the fifth-graders passed through the line without paying attention to Shamley. I particularly noticed one girl who took the time to meet Shamley's eyes and tell her "thank you" after receiving her lunch tray.

"Oh, that girl always says thank you," Shamley said. "A few of them say thank you but just a few."

Shamley said that she often sees some of her lunch customers when she is out grocery shopping. "When they see me they say 'Ma, that's our lunch teacher,'" Shamley said.

Fron operates a laptop PC at the end of the double lunch line. Students enter their lunch code in the keypad and their ID photo and account information appear on Fron's laptop screen.

Parents deposit money in the student's account to pay for school lunches. Fron's PC shows account balances and dietary information of each student as they enter their code.

Fron reminds students when they need to add more money to the account.

Students who are out of lunch account money are served a cheese sandwich and the day's fruit and vegetable choice of the day along with a carton of white milk.

The students wait at the end of the line until Fron checks their tray to be sure they have three out of the five total "components" of the day's lunch.

"Are you sure you don't want to go back and get some fruit," she asks a boy who only has a corn dog and a milk carton on his tray. He tells her "no."

On taco day, Fron has to make sure that each student taking a taco is also taking a container of shredded cheese in order to meet the dietary guideline for the day.

Fron sent one girl back to get the cheese before she could check out. "She cannot pass by me," Fron said. "I am like a sergeant."

I had fun watching Mary enjoy her McDonald lunch and plan on doing it a few more times before the end of school as long as Mary continues to eat her fruit, veggies and drink her milk at home.

Check with your school and see if you can bring a special treat to your student or even join your child for lunch.

You'll get to check in with your child at midday, meet some of their friends and maybe understand why sometimes kids say they just don't have enough time to finish lunch.