The first reports said Newton North students are no longer allowed to eat lunch at the Tiger’s Loft Bistro, reportedly because it violated federal guidelines. But the Globe refuted that a few weeks ago, pinning the blame instead on a contractual matter…
Newton’s associate city solicitor, Ouida Young, said in her reading of the federal guideline, it prevents competition from other food programs during lunch times.
But the federal regulations only address food served in the school cafeteria, not in a separate restaurant, according to John Magnarelli, regional director for special nutrition programs at the US Department of Agriculture.
Today the Globe editorializes on the matter...
….Newton school officials should work harder to strike a deal with Whitsons to allow students to serve fellow students.
The good news about the contract with Whitson’s is that they take the risk of managing the cafeteria to a profit, so it makes some sense to me that they’d have a stake in seeing food revenue go elsewhere on premises.
Does anyone know if the Loft charges for their food? Perhaps some portion of the revenue should do to Whitson’s?
Contracts can always be amended, but alternatively (and prompted by Dan’s comment), perhaps Whitson could supply the food/supplies the students use to cook with and they then share revenue from sales to students? This situation seems ripe for a win-win solution.
Tiger’s Loft does charge for food – I forget the amount, but it’s more than the school lunch. The Tiger’s Loft is the restaurant for the school’s Culinary Arts program (students who major in Culinary are planning careers in food service or hospitality) and it’s run just like a real restaurant/food service program,with students doing everything from menu planning, ordering, inventory, etc. to food prep/service to greeting guests to running the register to cleanup/washing dishes. It seems a little crazy that NPS would agree to a contract stipulation that basically cripples an extremely popular educational program.
Our schools should be expanding educational opportunities for students, not eliminating them. This situation was brought about because those responsible for negotiating the contract with Whitsons were not aware of the Tiger’s Loft, or did not contemplate the impact of the Whitson’s contract on that Bistro. There’s no good excuse for bad negotiating.
What bothers me almost as much, is the pathetic attempt by City Hall to cover up the screw up. Attorneys [including City Solicitors] are responsible for advocating on behalf of their clients. In this case an Associate City Solicitor was essentially advocating the position of her clients adversary, Whitsons. If she did that on her own she should be terminated. If she was instructed to do that, we should find out who instructed her.
In any event, the Mayor should have already intervened and allowed Tigers Loft Bistro to reopen. Put Whitsons in the position of having to decide whether they want the fallout of taking the City to court over this issue. Mayor Warren should be standing up for our students, and he’s not.
… what Anil said.
I would like to see our School Committee members step in to do something about this. They are supposed to care for the welfare of all Newton students, not just those who are most academically inclined.
contract law many times needs to be viewed in the broader longterm sense. Whitson’s originally viewed and was aware of the TL Bistro and acquiesced as a given in the original proposal. Whitson’s now has to live up to and perform as to their and the City’s expectations without the alleged outside interference of a competing entity within the structure. Fine, play their game by their insistance; should they fail to live up to the contractual performance requirements then they cannot point the finger at TLB – see you in Court 2015..
I want to see that the Mayor is capable of fixing a problem he helped to create. [He is a member of the School Committee, right?]. [This contract was signed on his watch, right?]
There is a very simple and quick solution to this. Just let the students reopen the Tiger’s Loft for business. Let the potato chips fall where they may.
I wouldn’t assume culinary students are not the most academically inclined! Anyway, this discussion is making me want to try Tiger’s Loft for lunch. Can the general public go now, and what are the hours?
Julia – I thought of this as I wrote my comment. I didn’t mean that all of them aren’t, but it’s true a lot of the vocational kids are less academically inclined – and that’s ok. We need good chefs and auto mechanics as much as we need good scientists and teachers. My point was that it seems like the vocational programs are the step-children in the Newton schools. I find it disturbing that we haven’t heard from anyone on the School Committee in all of this.