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Show Participation of school unch increased 22 Privatization of school lunch services ser-vices has been a booming success in tjtah's largest school district. Granite School District served 1.3 million more meals in 1989-90 than it did in the 1988-89 school year according ac-cording to Bob Ward, director of Food Services. This is a 22 percent increase. A year ago, the district contracted with Marriott Corporation's Food Service and Management Division to run its food services program. According to Ward, "Marriott brought marketing experience and a service-oriented emphasis on customer satisfaction. Kids won't just buy any meal that is offered. Schools have to compete with vending ven-ding machines and fast food outlets." The Taxpayers Association has been a strong advocate of privatization privatiza-tion of various school services including in-cluding food services and cleaning and maintenance of school buildings. As part of its flexible program. Granite District experimented with a Pizza Hut franchise at Skyline High School. It was so successful that a second one was opened at Olympus High. The schools still have vending machines competing with the school lunch program. Despite the competition with soft drinks and junk food, the privatized school lunch program has proved extremely extreme-ly successful. Of the 40 school districts in Utah, only Granite and Washington County Coun-ty School Districts contract food service operations to management companies. Washington School District contracts with ARA Corporation. Cor-poration. Success of the program in Washington Wash-ington County School District is similar to that in Granite. |