Conroe - Montgomery Edition | September 2025

Education

BY ANGELA BONILLA

Robyn Hughes, CISD’s child nutrition director, talks school meals Robyn Hughes, Conroe ISD’s director of child nutrition, spoke July 28 with Community Impact about her role in the district and its Child Nutrition Department. How do you decide what’s on the menu at CISD campuses? We have a menu planning team, and we work together [to] develop the menus, and they have to meet the USDA guidelines [and] student pref- erences. We have to make sure the menu items are available and that we can prepare them. So we have to think about the logistics, and we use student feedback; we look at participation trends and the nutrition of the items, and then we create the menus. ... They have to be both appealing to students as well as comply with the federal school

meal regulations, and we also have to consider cultural diversity and how cost-eective the menu items are. What would readers be surprised to learn about that goes into meal planning? I think they would be surprised at how many regulations we have, and that every menu has to meet specic nutrition requirements. So we look at calories and sodium and fat, and we have to plan months in advance to make sure we have enough food to prepare the menus and that we get the food on time, and we work with limited budgets. We have to look at nutrition and food safety regula- tions, and we have to please students and parents. How do the demands of the child nutrition department change as the district grows? Well, we have to increase our food produc- tion, [and] our stang. [We] have to look at our equipment, and we have to maintain quality and compliance, and we also have to look at when we grow, there are more diverse student needs and preferences.

Robyn Hughes is Conroe ISD’s director of child nutrition.

COURTESY CONROE ISD

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version, visit communityimpact.com .

Buy a new move-in ready home, receive $5,000 *

New homes from the upper $200s

*This offer is available only to buyers signing a move-in ready new home sales contract with an approved builder in The Woodlands Hills® from September 1, 2025 to October 31, 2025. The offer provides a $5,000 incentive on move-in ready new homes and funds may be used toward the price of the home, design center upgrades or closing costs on eligible move-in ready new homes. To qualify, the home purchase must close by December 31, 2025. Additional restrictions may apply. No substitutions will be permitted. The incentive will be awarded to the buyer at the time of closing. Homes within The Woodlands Hills are constructed and sold by builders not affiliated with Howard Hughes Holdings Inc® (“HHH”) or any of its affiliated companies or partnerships. Neither HHH nor any of its affiliated companies or partnerships guarantees or warrants the obligations of, or construction by, such builders. Prices and specifications subject to change.

14

COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM

Powered by