Montgomery County R-II Nutritional Services Director Haley Pipkins made a presentation at the district’s school board meeting on Aug. 13, sharing her nutritional program goals for the 2026-27 school year.

Her mission is to strengthen the district’s partnership with OPAA by expanding the nutritional program, increasing participation, enhancing communication and improving the dining experience for the students and staff.

Pipkins said she is looking to enlarge the adult meal participation by expanding offerings and improving communication with the district staff.

“I think a lot of times district staff don’t realize they don’t have to eat little kid meals,” Pipkins said. “I want them to be able to eat actual adult portions of food, so I’m going to promise to fix that communication gap so the staff is getting the whole amount of food that they would like and they are entitled to.”

Pipkins said she plans to expand district resources by pursuing grant funds to support the growth of the nutrition program.

“Now that I’ve been a director for a year, that opened me up to a lot more grants,” she said. “I’m already on the hunt to see what we can get, what we can bring in money for and funding for.”

The director hopes to get high participation in the annual student survey. The timeline is Oct. 1- Oct. 31.

“My goal is to get that student participation up to about 75 percent or higher because what is more valuable than the feedback from our customers and I’m missing that, so I want to hear what I can fix and get that constructive criticism,” Pipkins said.

The district food prices have been set for the school year. Breakfast will cost $3.45 for all of the schools. Lunch will cost $3.85 at the elementary schools and $3.95 at the middle and high schools.

“They’re going up, but I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that we’re conserving resources and we’re minimizing waste so we can keep them where they are,” Pipkins said. “We have a really generous lunch price here and I would really like to keep it as comfortable for the community as possible.”