- Dothan City Schools
- Homepage
Nationwide Food Shortage Impact on Dothan City Schools
Dear Parents & Caregivers,
Dothan City Schools is committed to serving quality, nutritious meals to students and staff. Like many other school districts, grocery stores, and restaurants across the nation, we are experiencing supply chain issues and a shortage of delivery drivers.
Many factors are affecting our struggles to obtain an adequate supply of food to feed our children each day, including:
- Labor Shortage Issues: there is a severe shortage of CDL Truck Drivers leading to delays and shortages of all goods, such as the raw materials to produce food and services nationwide. Labor and retention issues are causing higher costs due to supply and demand. Distributor labor is severely fatigued. Manufacturers and distributors nationwide have started terminating CNP contracts until further notice due to the issues above.
- Raw Materials Shortage Issues: Raw material shortages are limiting our manufacturer’s abilities to produce goods. Due to industry shortages, manufacturers are further consolidating their production lines into what they can most efficiently produce. These same shortages are further causing higher prices in the supply chain due to supply and demand.
To inform your decisions about whether to pack a lunch or order a school lunch for your children, we encourage you to check our menus daily, as these shortages will cause our menus to change often. We encourage you to continually monitor our website at dothan.k12.al.us/menu or Dothan City Schools Child Nutrition Program Facebook Page.
Dothan City Schools registered dietitians and nutrition teams are developing menu substitutions as needed.
As we prepare to do everything we can, your support would be greatly appreciated by:
- Being prepared to send your children to school with their packed lunch;
As a last resort, we may also ask that you prepare to have virtual/remote school days a few days out of the week to alleviate the stress of our food supplies. Rest assured, breakfast and lunch at no charge will continue to be available to all students. However, we face a situation where we must do everything we can to continue providing a nurturing environment for our students to learn and grow. Your support would be greatly appreciated.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we face this nationwide issue.
Additional Resource:
From carrots to Crispitos: How Alabama schools are battling COVID-19 food shortages | AL.com News Story
Sincerely,
Dennis Coe, Ed.D.
Superintendent