Gery Chico on the Realities of Serving 410,000 Meals a Day

By Janice Matsumoto, Associate Editor

When Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley tapped his former chief of staff, Gery Chico, to serve a term heading up the board of education in 1995, someone else might have hesitated. Especially one who knew as well as Chico did the difficulties ahead.

“When I was in the mayor’s office, we had to run from the subject of public schools,” Chico says. “Our schools were among the worst in the country. There were labor issues, budget issues, strikes threatened every year so you’d never know whether schools would be opening on schedule or not. Teachers could never get the traction to do a good job academically. And the reason was, there was no money.”

Chico, together with fellow Daley appointee Paul G. Vallas, the city’s former director of budget and now Chicago Public Schools’ chief executive officer, has pushed and pulled the ailing system into a model of reform.

Modernizing foodservice operations has been an integral part of that effort. For the last three years, the board of education has required that every school built and all major school expansions include a modern kitchen and cafeteria. To date, some 50 schools have been so equipped.

Even as a parent with three daughters attending Chicago schools, Chico was not deterred from accepting Daley’s offer.

“The biggest fallacy is that you have to have an Ed. D. after your name to run a school. What you need for success is the ability to make sound decisions. That skill doesn’t depend on prior knowledge or content.”

He can back that assertion with results. The school system is in the fourth straight year of improved test scores, the fifth year of a balanced budget and the fifth year of peaceful labor relations. It is 75% of the way through a $3 billion capital-improvement project. And school boards in cities such as Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit and Washington, D.C., have sent delegations to see what good fiscal management can do.

Compact, with short iron-gray hair and a friendly, direct gaze, the 43-year-old Chico looks every bit the part of school board president as well as lawyer; he spends more than half his time as a partner at the Altheimer & Gray law firm. Apart from their accomplishments on the academic side, Chico and Vallas are very much appreciated by the school system’s foodservice department.

Roughly $6 million has been spent over the past two years on new equipment. Officials plan to spend $12 million over the next five years to refurbish kitchens in existing schools.

Compared to the system’s $4 billion annual budget for the 591 schools, $12 million might seem insignificant. But not to the foodservice staff.

Until Chico’s arrival as board president five years ago, the term “tasty and nutritious school meals” struck many as an oxymoron. And considering the dismal financial state of the school system, additional funding to upgrade or replace equipment was out of the question. At the board level, foodservice was just another line on a tight budget. Chico has helped put foodservice back on the radar screen. For him and the six board members, earmarking $12 million for better cafeteria fare was an easy decision.

“Chicago Public Schools foodservice is a $142 million-a-year program,” Chico says. “If kids aren’t eating the food, that means we’re throwing away money every single day.

“What good does it do to hit high marks with nutrition if the food’s not being consumed?” he adds. “It didn’t make sense.”

Improving school food is not just a matter of taste. Studies seem to show conclusively that there is a direct correlation between good nutrition and academic performance.

For Chicago, where about 86% of the system’s 430,000 students come from low-or modest-income families, the meals kids get at school may be the most well-balanced of their daily intake.

Chico doesn’t try to shift the responsibility for kids’ eating habits onto parents. “It may be parents’ jobs, but that doesn’t excuse us. We see the kids for six hours a day. I see the role of a good school meal as being sort of an insurance policy for their future, introducing them to better eating habits.”

Nutritionally well-balanced food is one thing. But until recently, good-tasting food has been another.

The Chicago public school system, founded in 1840, operates many facilities that have passed the century mark. Of the 617 foodservice sites (including charter schools), about 200 still rely on warming ovens and prepackaged food delivered by truck to feed students.

Cramped quarters are common in the older facilities. At the venerable Moos Elementary School, in service for more than 100 years, foodservice workers serve 500 lunches and 150 breakfasts a day out of a remodeled vestibule. Their equipment consists of four ovens, a warmer and two walk-in coolers sitting nearby in the hallway.

Delivery trucks drop off prepackaged, reheatable meals each morning. About 125 kids at a time file in, pick up their meals, then walk across the hall for a 20-minute lunch break. Having a choice of entrées is not an option.

By contrast, the newly built Ames Middle School could be a template for quality school foodservice. All food is prepared in the kitchen. Students have a choice of three entrées daily, and although they might not realize it, the cafeteria staff works hard to guarantee that the last person going through the line has the same choices as the first.

Chico, who believes that sitting behind a desk is no way to learn the territory, has visited and eaten lunch at many schools around the city. He makes a point of stopping in kitchens and cafeterias to meet the staff, chat with students and check out the lunch offerings.

In a system where about half the students are African-American, over a third Latino, and the rest a multifarious mix that includes as many as 80 ethnic groups, keeping every student happy with daily menu offerings is a major challenge. The five-week-cycle menus, designed to turn out 410,000 meals a day, don’t lend themselves to customization on a school-by-school basis. Still, menu planners include ethnic dishes—such as gyros, collard greens, red beans and rice and tacos—throughout the cycle.

It was, in fact, one of Chico’s weekly school visits that brought up the school meal issue in the first place. “The kids were telling us they didn’t like the food,” he says. That was enough to get the school board involved.

First-hand experience is not limited just to Chico’s visits. Every other board meeting is held at a school—often catered by the local foodservice staff.“When we [the school board] visit, the school cooks make food that rivals restaurants,” Chico says.

And in a further show of support, he strongly encourages all administrators to eat at school cafeterias when they’re out on site visits.

Few details escape Chico’s attention—and he takes every opportunity to put Chicago Public Schools before the public in a positive way.

“One morning I was driving in and noticed a school rehab project, halfway done. The school, Sherwood, was getting new windows, its brick being sandblasted—a complete makeover. Then I noticed there was no sign identifying the school anywhere. So I called into the office to make sure that one went up as soon as possible, right on the side of the building where everyone can see it.”

Chico never slows his pace and despite the accomplishments already posted, he and Vallas are still racing to meet the board’s goals.

“We have to move quickly,” Chico says. “The clock doesn’t stand still for kids.”

—Janice Matsumoto