How Aurora Public Schools feeds 40,000 students
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AURORA, Colo. — Gloria Arroyo’s office door is covered in cards.
“Dear lunch lady, tank you for food, and survice [sic]. You are so kind, and so beautiful,” read one of the notes from a student named Roman.
Arroyo, cafeteria manager at Mosley P-8 in Aurora, said she is very appreciative of the notes — and the directness of the feedback.
“These kids, they’ll tell you if you’re doing a good job or a bad job — they’re very vocal,” Arroyo said.
Thanks to voter-approved free meal programs, more kids than ever are eating breakfast and lunch at Aurora Public Schools. In order to feed 40,000 students every day, APS relies on a collaborative relationship between its central kitchen, school kitchens and local businesses to ensure the food’s quality.
Video: Peter Vo, Rocky Mountain PBS
In the heart of the Centretech neighborhood, the APS central kitchen prepares meals for schools across the district. Every day, kitchen staff prepare cold meals, sauces and desserts to send out to schools. This preparation streamlines the workflow at the individual schools; cafeteria workers don’t have to cook every component of every meal, every day.
“Our work lets kids learn and grow, that’s the best part about our job,” said Katie Lopez, the district’s nutrition services director.
In 2016 when Lopez first started with the nutrition services department at APS, schools were still making many things in house like their own beans and marinara sauce. While this gave cafeteria workers more agency in creating foods from scratch, there were inconsistencies in quality.
Within the last 10 years, APS partnered with Tico’s Mexican Food Commissary, alleviating some work that school kitchens would otherwise have to complete daily. Tico’s provides staples like refried beans, queso and tomato soup.
The central kitchen does the rest of the preparation.
At 6 a.m., trucks come and go from the central kitchen as drivers deliver food to schools across Aurora. Lopez said that on days where the weather is bad or when a truck breaks down, schools have emergency food on hand.
“If we had to run food from our own vehicles to the schools, we’d do that,” Lopez said.
At the same time, kitchen staff will start on the next day’s meals. While one staff member assembles and wraps breakfast sandwiches, another is tending to an industrial mixer, making a batch of pumpkin muffins for the seasonal menu.
Cafeteria staff at individual schools start their days at 6 a.m., too, preparing foods for breakfast and lunch. They incorporate whatever they receive from the central kitchen into the lunch schedule.
Arroyo and her team of six wash fruit, chop vegetables and cook the meals for the day with big commercial ovens and steamers. In fact, that’s the only way to cook food in the kitchen.
“We don’t even have a stove in here,” Arroyo said.
“The thing that I like most about this job is when the kids come up to you, they give you a hug, and tell you that your food is great,” Arroyo said. “A lot of jobs, people don’t tell you that they appreciate you — here at Mosley, we feel appreciated by the students.”
The staff plates meals for 850 students and greets them as they pick and choose what to eat. Students can choose between hot or cold meals. All meals are free to students thanks to the “Healthy School Meals for All” initiative that started in the 2023-24 school year.
“I get so excited whenever it’s lunch because I’ve been starving the whole day,” said Dalaya, a third grader. “It’s hard to concentrate on an empty stomach.”
Violet, another third grader, on the other hand, has a different strategy to combat hunger: “I just pretend that I don’t have a stomach and I’m okay.”
On the day that Rocky Mountain PBS visited, APS hosted a “Colorado Proud Day” in which every meal was locally sourced from Colorado farms and businesses.
“What’s so cool about today is that kids can know that their food comes from growers in the states — everything is fresher,” Arroyo said.
Lopez said the district is trying to move in a direction where it can work more with local producers.
“It’s important for students to know where their food is coming from and it’s just better for the economy, it’s better for the environment when you’re not having to mass transit food across the country.”
The central kitchen will undergo expansion and renovations within the next two years to house new equipment, Lopez said. Once the pieces are in place, the district will be able to test new recipes and make more food in-house.
APS is also building a bigger warehouse right off of Airport Boulevard in order to make space for more local produce from farmers across the state.
“One of the things that we’ve been working on over the years is getting the cleanest label products we can for kids,” Lopez said.
Violet, however, has one suggestion for the district.
“I wish the school had hot dogs,” she said. “They’re the best.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.