Parents of students in the Allen County School District now have a new way to check what’s for breakfast and lunch at each school in the district. The Meal Viewer App is now available for download onto smart phones and tablets---providing parents instant access to their daily menus.
The Meal Viewer app---funded through a three-year grant from Meal Viewer using funds provided by the Healthy Family Imitative--- is designed to be a new resource parents can use every day.
“Apps are the going thing,” explained Allen County Schools Food Services Director Mary Hobdy. “The Meal Viewer app is right there on your phone or tablet. Parents can use this the night before to see what’s for breakfast or lunch. I think we are going in the right direction. This is the next step in communicating with parents what we are serving. This is way over due.”
Hobdy learned about Meal Viewer in a meeting at GRREC (Green River Regional Education Cooperative) last fall. More information was obtained later in 2015 when a Meal Viewer representative was at a Kentucky Department of Agriculture conference Hobdy attended.
“I liked what I saw the first time I saw it,” Hobdy said. “This app was envisioned by a former Food Services Director and then created by her son.”
Using the free Meal Viewer App is simple. The app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play in a matter of minutes. Once installed, the user will be asked to enter the name of the school district, specific school, or city in which the school is located. Users may also select “favorite” schools which will allow the app to open to that school---making for even quicker access to menus.
Once a school is selected, the Meal View App allows users to see the complete breakfast and lunch menus for the day. The display will show the complete menu items---the main entrees and drink. Each item listed also has calories, sodium, and saturated fat levels included---the three items that the district is required to track with each meal. To see another date, users can click to view the menu for that specific day. Parents can view menus for 30 days at a time.
The handy tool is designed for easy use by parents and students. Not only can parents check the day before---or even weeks---before for the menu, students with smart phones can also check to see what’s being served and indicate favorites.
“If the kids like an item, they can star it,” added Food Services assistant Robin Herrington. “That will tell the kids what day that you will have that food item again. Also, if you have kids in different schools, parents can see favorites at each school.”
The Food Services Page at the district’s website (www.allen.kyschools.us) has more information about Meal Viewer. A link to instructions on downloading the App is available. A link to a web version will be available for families to view. The link will also have a print option. This will give families an additional viewing option on the web.
Food Services personal will be tweaking the App in the coming weeks. At the beginning of the 2016-17 school year, students will be given a front-and-back informational sheet---a sheet prepared by Food Services interim Mandy Clark---which will explain the procedure for using the app.