Family Style Lunch
Students and faculty gather around the table every day at three lunch seatings: grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Each month students are assigned to a new table with different faculty and a mix of grade levels. Students forge friendships across grades, engage in lunchtime conversations in a relaxed environment, and enjoy a healthy array of healthy food choices prepared on site, including a hot entree, homemade soup, a daily salad and sandwich bar, and a juice bar. Students also learn responsibility by performing chores such as setting and cleaning the table.
At Montgomery School, the lunch program is considered part of the curriculum. All of the students eat meals prepared in the school kitchen, family-style. During lunch, faculty members sit with the students, and the students take turns waiting on the table and doing other lunch-time chores. Chef Ron Ettorre joined Montgomery School as head chef at Montgomery in October 2015. In his role, he works with Mark and Andrea, who have been part of the Montgomery community for several years. All three work for Metz Culinary Management, a food service organization headquartered in Dallas, PA.
Chef Ron, explained, “My whole philosophy is to deliver the best meal every day, so that the next day will be even better. Everything comes back to me here, so if it isn’t good, it comes back to me. I try to make sure that the students and staff are taken care of every day.”
Highlights of our family style lunch program:
- Fresh fruits and vegetables
- Locally sourced foods
- All natural rBST-free dairy products sourced from nearly 50 local farms
- Organic school garden since 2005
- Kitchen herb garden
- Organic produce when possible