Shonia Hall's job is no simple feat. As the director of student nutrition services for Oklahoma City Public Schools, she's responsible for the nutrition needs of more than 32,000 students from pre-K through their senior year.
Hall has been with the district for nine and a half years, and spent a decade before that in public health. Her career roles, including those with the district, have always focused on nutrition, health and food.
"My undergrad's in biology and chemistry, and my master's is health science with a concentration in community health. I started with the district in compliance and training, so doing their food safety training, rules, regulations, procedures, and then there was an opportunity to advance to assistant director and in January of 2020 I was selected for director of school nutrition," she said.
The state's second-largest school district, according to official enrollment numbers , with 32,920 students in the 2023-2024 school year, the OKC district is outranked only by Tulsa Public Schools. Hall's team includes about 365 staff ranging from her menu planner and assistant director, to her operations manager and those in the kitchens at schools across the district.
"I'm just one person, and at the end of the day, I'm only successful because they're successful," Hall said. "I serve my staff so that we can serve our students, and it's all of us."
The team work doesn't end within OKCPS. Nutrition services is a collaborative field as a whole, said Hall, who was named The School Nutrition Association of Oklahoma's 2024 Director of the Year.
"Child Nutrition is one of the best sharing group of professionals that there is, and we share ideas," Hall said. "It's a multitude of things that Child Nutrition professionals share with other districts from recipes to standard operating procedures … We're not afraid to share. We're all here on the same team to be successful for kids."
Q: You took over the role of director of student nutrition services in January 2020 just before the onset of the pandemic. What was it like stepping into that role right as everything got disrupted?
A: I am thankful that I have had my public health experience and I was assistant director when I kind of stepped into that role and then moved into the COVID times. I think that all of us were together like 'What are we going to do and how are we going to make this happen?' One of the best things about child nutrition staff is we know how to pivot and feed kids no matter what.
I think the thought of feeding kiddos curbside is different than anything that we've ever did, so there were certainly some challenges. It really made the team come together, and they're an amazing team anyway, but they really came together to be able to feed kids and they understand and know the needs to feed kids and what that looks like and the importance of meals, and although it looked different where that learning occurred at, it was still happening and we still knew the importance of getting those meals to kiddos.
I think child nutrition was building an airplane while we were flying it all at the same time, and somehow or another we made it work. I'm not gonna tell you there wasn't some tears occasionally ... but at the end of the day when you feed a kid and you pass out meals to families to feed all their kids, 18 and under, that's what you go home knowing that you did a good job at.
Q: Where does your passion for child nutrition come from?
A: I grew up in eastern Oklahoma and my parents did a very good job raising me, but we raised our own food because we were poor. We just didn't have a lot of food. My mother and father just didn't have a whole lot of food when they grew up or anything like that.
The importance of food and nutrition and food as medicine, and it can be good for you, and the importance of having full bellies really resonates with me, and it's something I'm very passionate about because of where I come from.
A child can't help it if the parents don't have money or whatever that looks like to put a meal on that table. The child has no control over that. However, when they come to school they can always know at OKCPS they're going to get a breakfast and lunch at no cost.
Q: One nationwide concern is food insecurity, especially among children. OKCPS has really worked to try and do as much as it can by offering free breakfast and lunch to its students. How does that impact those kids?
A: Often there may be — at districts that are not qualified … or they can't do meals at no cost for their students — a lunch debt with parents. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to be the bill collector for that.
The fact that we don't have to worry about any of that, I am able to produce high quality food with my staff, let our students choose what they want to eat and they get both breakfast and lunch at no charge. Any of our students can eat, and they don't have to worry about any of that.
They can't learn on an empty tummy. … So it's important to be able to offer them a healthy nutritious meal that they can go into the classroom and be ready to learn.
Q: That extends into the summer. How does that process work? What does it look like when you're extending beyond the school year for feeding those kids as well?
A: At our sites we have our enrolled students. This year, they were open and students throughout the community or anybody not even an enrolled student anyone could come into our campuses 1 to 18 that were open and operating and sit down and have a meal at no charge.
In addition to that we had feeding sites that were throughout the community. We had four off-site feeding locations. We really try to look at where those off sites are so that students can walk or families can walk or who do we partner with. Maybe they have a day camps that there will be a lot of kiddos there that maybe can't bring their lunch and that camp is not providing lunch. How do we partner with them to be able to feed all those kiddos there so they get to have fun plus they get to eat. It's a win-win.
Q: What are some of the unique challenges you face being in charge of nutrition for a district of your size?
A: Sometimes we write our menu and we put our menu in a year in advance to procure food, so there may be a food shortage or a menu item shortage because we have certain rules and regulations that we have to meet. It's not always you just get to substitute it. It still has to be child nutrition approved.
Adhering to those rules and regulations is really important to what we do to make sure that we have reimbursable meals for our students, so that's certainly a challenge.
Another challenge is, and I think it's a fun challenge ... What they liked last week may completely change to this week, and a pre-K'ers palate may look completely different than my high school students. … How many different menus do we need to be able to produce, still be in compliance, procure that food and make it all work for right around $4.35 for lunch?
Q: What is it like building those menus out and trying to take into account all of the nutrition needs of students and what does that process look like?
A: We procured food and kind of started finalizing our menus in December of 2023. ... We have food vendors that come in and rep their food, we go to food shows. We get our budget, we know how much we can spend. We look at that, we also look at trends within our data and our production records. Did our kids love this? Did they not love this? Because if the kids didn't love it then I don't need to put that back on the menu. ... And then how do we level up?
I love a good strategic plan and every year I write a strategic plan and this year it's Going For The Gold. Sometimes that's starting at the basics and getting those things right. Getting our recipes right because I can have good food but I've got to make sure that the recipe's right. And then I've got to market it to our students, so all of that goes into what we take a look at.
I love to give our students a variety of food. Not just one option — we do offer versus serve — so they may get four or five options a day to get to pick from. I mean when you go to a restaurant you get to pick right? So that's what we like to do.
Q: What are some of the things that you have learned about the population of the OKCPS students in this role?
A: They love spicy. They will ask for spicy things, so we try to put that on there and they have a very wide taste of different palates. But for the most part if I do spicy, savory, they're there for it.
Mashed potatoes and gravy are kind of a staple with our kiddos, they love pizza — so some of those regular things that we may have at home, our students like as well — but we love an opportunity to introduce new things that they might not get at home that looks different.
We also think about 'Okay what are restaurants, what are different ones doing? What are these kids eating at? How can we take that and procure products that are compliant to let our students have that same experience as they would maybe in a restaurant?' We're always there to serve our students to get them to eat. We want them to eat. We want them to dine with us.
Q: What has been your favorite part of this role?
A: Obviously, feeding the kiddos. And chit-chatting with third grade girls is pretty exciting. They have lots to say. They're so fun to chit-chat with those girls and those kiddos across the table and they're sassy and fun so I love eating lunch with the kids or breakfast with the kids. … The different age groups from elementary to the middle school to the high school are very different in our interactions with them and trying to get input or chit-chat.
I also absolutely love public policy. Public policy is that backbone it sets all those rules and regulations of what I get the opportunity to do every day. I think that it's important to have that voice.
… Those rules and regulations are there and we get the opportunity to change those, have a voice in what they look like and that is always our goal because I'm serving the students of OKCPS. I need to have a voice for those, and I will always be a voice for our students to make it better for them whatever that looks like.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Feeding 32,000 kids a day: Meet the woman running the OKCPS student nutrition program
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