Orbetello (Grosseto). The Municipality of Orbetello launches the project “Parents at the canteen”which offers some primary school parents the opportunity to learn more about the school lunch service offered in schools in the municipal area.
The Municipality of Orbetello manages the school lunch service by outsourcing it to an external entity. For the monitoring and control of the service, one is already provided canteen commission, which includes representatives among both teachers and parents, for each school complex, who carry out meetings and periodic checks on the terminals. Undoubtedly, the school lunch service is very delicate and it becomes difficult to have an objective perception of the service, as parents, not having knowledge of the service in its entirety, rely exclusively on their children’s observations and comments, failing to perceive instead the complexity of the service, the numerous rules that regulate it and the fact that, as a priority, compliance with the “rules” of food balance and health and hygiene standards must be guaranteed. Furthermore, subjective perception, linked to tastes and eating habits, influences the judgement.
Those who are part of the canteen commission, thanks to meetings and inspections, have the opportunity to learn more about the service, while for other parents it is more difficult to have an overall vision.
The project
Precisely from this reflection was born the idea of proposing a project whose objective is to allow some parents, not already part of the canteen commission and identified by the school, preferably among class representatives, to have a deeper knowledge of the service, offering them the opportunity to get closer to the school lunch, taking them inside the schools one day at the time of eating the meal, in such a way as to observe its organization and, possibly, giving them the opportunity to taste the meal of the day. Obviously, the company will not be notified of the days on which these extraordinary entrances will take place, in order to guarantee participants that what they will attend is any canteen day.
However, it must be clear that this will not be a control of the service, but of an informative visitas the control function falls exclusively to the canteen commission.
The project for this school year, now coming to an end, is aimed only at primary schools and provides the possibility for about 3 hours 4 parents, who are not part of the commission, to have access to the premises where the service is carried out, together with at least one member of the canteen commission and a contact person from the Public Education office. The municipal representative will prepare a small report of the day, which will then be submitted to the canteen commission, at the conclusion of the project itself.
The school will be asked to identify the interested parties who will be reported to the Municipality. The organization will then coordinate and organize a visit to each primary school complex.
This project will take place in May 2024.
