Smiles from students tell the story: instead of chatting with friends in cafeteria lines, children and teenagers receive sack lunches sitting in cars lined along the curb. Still, during the coronavirus crisis, they are comforted by the familiar flavors of school meals, provided at no cost by the Garland Independent School District (ISD).
More than half of the students attending Garland ISD schools are economically disadvantaged; many rely on meals through the USDA’s Free and Reduced Lunch Program to meet nutritional needs. To serve its students and communities, Garland ISD continued delivery of close to 36,000 meals per day during the COVID-19 pandemic. The school district engaged Intelligent Forms Automation with OpenText™ LiquidOffice™ and OEM Partner PCS Revenue Control Systems to drive efficiency and accuracy for the valued service.
“Meal counts would take a lot longer if we were doing everything by paper without a centralized location,” said Jason Hickman, technology coordinator with Garland ISD Student Nutrition Services. “Knowing how many meals we’re serving definitely helps all of the other cogs in the process do what they have to do as far as daily ordering, approving, shipping and receiving to get the food to the schools.”
Fast and accurate meal counts also expedite reimbursement from the USDA to the school district. During the crisis, Garland ISD and dozens of other school districts across the United States secured accurate tracking for federal funding through an application built on LiquidOffice: Feed the Kids was developed and distributed by PCS during the pandemic free of charge.
“LiquidOffice has a unique design utility with drag-and-drop,” noted Dusty Swan, Director of the FORMS Division for PCS Revenue Control Systems. “We pulled it together with absolutely no coding of any kind and went live in three days.”
We had the pleasure of speaking with the school lunch heroes at Garland ISD and PCS developers for a success story. Read how they continued a vital service during challenging times here.
