Wai'alae parents raising money for cafeteria
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer
Wai'alae Elementary School used to serve lunch hot and fresh from the school cafeteria.
This year, however, the school trucks in food from a Department of Education satellite kitchen and charges $2, twice as much as what pupils paid last year for essentially the same meals.
Parents want to see food preparation back in the cafeteria and have committed to raising $30,000 to achieve that. A silent auction is under way at silentauction.fws.org and will conclude at the school's May 8 fun fair.
"We want to create a small cafeteria-style environment that you would see in any college campus or at many private schools, with fresh fruit, a salad bar, a deli bar, comparable to what the DOE would provide for the children," said Kristi Matson, a parent member of Wai'alae's school board.
Unlike startup charter schools, Wai'alae is a conversion school that uses DOE facilities and continues to serve as the elementary school for the district. Until this year, the DOE ran the school's cafeteria, providing employees and food. The startups have had to find their own facilities and most do not have cafeterias to prepare food on campus.
However, Wai'alae was grouped with all the other charter schools last year when the state changed the way it finances them. Food service now is included in the per-pupil allotment, leading to tough decisions, explained Annette Masutani, the school's acting CEO. "Either the school pays it and takes money out of the instructional part, or we increase the costs of lunches to kids," she said.
Roughly 90 percent of the school's 477 pupils purchase lunch daily. The school continues to subsidize 75 cents of each lunch, but some parents still complained when they saw the lunch prices double. However, once Masutani was able to explain what happened, they started to be more accepting.
Along with the financing, Wai'alae lost its cafeteria staff when the DOE pulled out of the school cafeteria. The workers could not be retained because they would have lost their civil service benefits if they left the DOE.
The remaining equipment is not adequate for the school's needs, which became apparent during a search for a new food-service provider to provide in-house meals. Many of the appliances are outdated, and some are not up to code, such as the hood over the stove.
"Before many vendors would even be willing to consider it, we need a properly outfitted kitchen," Matson said.
Debbie Zimmerman, who has children in kindergarten and second grade at Wai'alae, said the fund-raiser is more ambitious than others attempted by the Friends of Wai'alae School, the school's parent organization.
"It's very aggressive for us. The last time we had a silent auction, we raised about $6,000," Zimmerman said. This time around, the auction items carry a retail value of more than $25,000.
"Realistically, I don't expect to make 100 percent on the donated items, but I think we'll make a significant dent," in the fund-raising effort, she said.
The school also is looking for a sponsor to donate $7,500 to underwrite the costs of the May 8 fun fair, Zimmerman said.
For more information or to help, call Zimmerman at 735-7771.
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
