LTISD Info

The LTHS has a coffee bar!

Note: The February 19, 2009 Austin American-Statesman article on this is no longer on the paper’s web site. You read the text of the article below:

“EDUCATION

Lake Travis High School coffee bar an early success

Growing number of high schools nationwide building cafeteria coffee bars.

By Molly Bloom
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, February 19, 2009

By 1 p.m., Lake Travis High School junior Erica Bonin was sipping her third Snickers-flavored Frapp from Main Street Java, the school’s in-house coffee bar.

Some days, she says, she’ll knock back four or five coffee-flavored shakes by the time the final bell rings.

“I hardly ever eat anything else,” Bonin said.

Some high schools in Texas and nationwide are building in-school coffee bars, enticed by the profits from the beverages, which are popular among teens, and by the premise that keeping coffee-drinking kids on campus will help them focus on their studies. Many of the ventures are a success, as measured by sales and student satisfaction, but some nutrition experts are questioning whether selling the often sugary caffeinated drinks in schools is good for students’ health.

Main Street Java opened in Lake Travis High’s newly renovated cafeteria at the start of the school year. Bastrop High School opened a coffee shop this school year, too, and Round Rock is planning to incorporate a student-operated coffee bar into its newest high school, planned to open in 2010.

Food service contractor Aramark has opened 15 in-school coffee shops nationwide since 2003, including three in the Dallas and Houston areas. Austin schools do not serve coffee to students, district spokeswoman Roxanne Evans said.

In Lake Travis, the inspiration for Main Street Java came from the sight of high school students strolling into morning classes with disposable coffee cups in hand, food and nutrition services director Barbara Galaway-Patrick said.

Lake Travis spent about $12,000 of the $2.9 million allotted for the high school cafeteria’s renovation to outfit the coffee shop with a stainless steel La Cimbali espresso machine, display cases for pastries, slick black counters and bar-height tables and stools, Galaway-Patrick said.

The investment has paid off, she said.

The coffee shop sells about $350-$500 a day in cappuccinos, lattes, organic teas, scones and other assorted goodies, accounting for about a sixth of the cafeteria’s total sales, Galaway-Patrick said. Students from the school’s business academy work in the cafe, which pays $8 to the academy’s activity fund for every hour students work.

The coffee shop’s top seller is the Snickers-flavored Frapp, a blended mixture of caramel, chocolate and hazelnut syrups, milk, a powdered dairy base, ice and, of course, a shot of espresso, all crowned with whipped cream and drizzled with more chocolate syrup.

A large Snickers Frapp, which is 20 ounces, has 402 calories, 12.5 grams of fat, 22 grams of sugar and about 60 milligrams of caffeine. By comparison, 20 ounces of Coca-Cola has about 243 calories, no fat, 65 grams of sugar and 58 milligrams of caffeine, according to the company. Also popular at the coffee shop are the cookie dough and cookies-and-cream Frapps. A large Frapp is $2.75, and a smaller 12-ounce Frapp is $2.15.

Teachers are usually the only customers for black coffee, Galaway-Patrick said.

District administrators thought about the merits of serving coffee to teenagers before deciding to open the coffee shop but figured that students were drinking coffee anyway, and an in-school coffee bar gives them a reason to be at school on time and gives them a safe place to socialize, Lake Travis High food and nutrition services manager LoraJeanne Blaker said.

Dr. Marcie Schneider, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on nutrition, said the in-school coffee bar sounds like a bad idea.

Though it’s unclear whether caffeine negatively affects teenagers’ developing neurological systems, Schneider said that for teens, as for adults, caffeine can raise heart rates and blood pressure, act as a diuretic, give drinkers a sense of hyperawareness and increase motor skills.

Some doctors recommend that teenagers have no more than 21/2 to 4 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram a day, Schneider said. That works out to about two cups of coffee for a 100-pound freshman.

Teenagers are less inclined than adults to rein in the impulse to have just one more cup of coffee, despite the side effects, said Schneider, who has a medical practice in Greenwich, Conn., that focuses on adolescents.

“For kids, for teenagers, there’s no reason to have caffeine,” she said. “From my perspective, kids can be drinking water, milk and orange juice fortified with calcium. There’s nothing else they really need.”

Lake Travis High School covers healthy lifestyles in health and physical education classes and offers a variety of healthy food options in its cafeteria. It also offers free workshops on nutrition, exercise and other health topics for parents. Because the school doesn’t participate in the National School Lunch Program, it is not subject to state laws that limit beverages, except milk, to 30 grams of sugar or less per eight ounces. State law caps drink serving sizes in schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program to less than 12 ounces but does not limit caffeine content.

Lake Travis parents have the option of barring their children from using money in their cafeteria accounts to buy coffee shop items. Only one parent has instituted a Frapp block, Galaway-Patrick said.

mbloom@statesman.com; 445-3620″

- Molly Bloom, “Lake Travis High School coffee bar an early success,” Austin American-Statesman, February 19, 2009.

On March 13, 2009, the Austin American-Statesman published this correction:

“In a story about coffee bars in high schools that appeared on Page One on Feb. 19, a Lake Travis High School student who claimed to drink as many as five coffee-flavored shakes a day falsely identified herself as Erica Bonin. School officials said they could not confirm the identity of the student who did speak with the reporter. Attempts by the Statesman to reach the student or her parents by phone have been unsuccessful.”

What does a “coffee bar” have to do with public education?

Just who made the decision to allow this and better yet (follow the money), who is profiting from this?

A “coffee bar” must be one of those things that just goes along with an “indoor athletic facility,” AKA: Multipurpose Facility.

By the way, have you ever heard of any organization other than the football team having access to this facility?

Has the band ever used it?

Makes you wonder about the term “multipurpose.”