SAVAGE, Minn. – Parents and students complained, and now officials in the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District are taking action.

District officials decided this week to officially pull the plug on the National School Lunch Program at Prior Lake High School after a flurry of complaints about food quality and portion sizes imposed through Michelle Obama’s federal school food restrictions, the Prior Lake American reports.

“This all stemmed from a student movement last fall when our students shared their voices and said they wanted something different from this food service program,” food services director Janeen Peterson told the news site.

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School officials began considering the move in March, when Peterson told KSTP the high school was losing as much as $2,000 per day from an increasing number of students bringing their food from home. The loss is roughly half of what the district expects to lose in federal subsidies for free and reduced-price lunches if it ditches the National School Lunch Program.

But it’s not really the money that’s driving the decision in Prior Lake.

“The school lunch program was not necessarily made for a heavy-duty athlete whose calorie needs are much higher than what we’re supposed to provide or the maximum that we can provide for a lunch,” Peterson told KSTP in March.

“What our students are asking for, and our parents are asking for, are portion sizes that meet student needs.”

Schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program are subjected to strict limitations on calories, salt, fat, sugar and other nutritional components outlined in the National Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act – Michelle Obama’s pet project to combat childhood obesity through bureaucracy.

Prior Lake student athlete Ryan Wetherell is limited to the 850 calories he eats for lunch at 10:30 a.m. to get him through his school day and practice, which ends around 7 p.m.

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“I could definitely eat some more,” he told KSTP. “For me, that’s a little small.”

That’s why the Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board voted this week to launch a pilot program at the high school to take over food services completely, ditching the National School Lunch Program and raising lunch costs somewhat to keep the program viable, according to the Prior Lake American.

Peterson recommended a lunch price increase to $2.95, but said it will be important for school officials to monitor its rate of free and reduced price lunch students, whom the district will continue to subsidize out of the lunch budget.

Currently 10.5 percent of students eating lunch receive the help.

“If the number of free and reduced lunches goes up to 12 percent, that would be a reason to reevaluate” the decision to opt out of the National School Lunch Program, superintendent Sue Ann Gruver told the news site.

Meanwhile, other schools – mostly ones that can’t afford to drop out of the National School Lunch Program – are doing what they can to cope with the federal restrictions.

At Holy Redeemer, a K-8 school in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, school lunch volunteers are replacing salt with pepper and garlic, and use homemade dressing to cut calories.

“We love the children … They know us, and we play games with them,” volunteer Gerry Barile told WKBN 27. “They say they just want a little bit of sauce, so I give them a little bit – a drop. You should see them smile.”

That has a certain Oliver Twist flavor to it:

At nearby Sharon High School, food service director Alice Connelly is struggling to cover the cost of the federal government’s increased fruit and vegetable requirements.

“The USDA put all regulations in place, but they didn’t project the cost of food rising,” Connelly told WKBN. “It used to be you gave kids ¾ cup vegetables, but now on the high school level, you are giving them two cups. That is a huge difference in cost.”

Connelly said she expects the school’s food budget to be about $100,000 in the red by the end of the school year.