Understanding the day-to-day health of your K-12 food service operation is essential to ensuring its success. The right set of operational metrics can help you determine if you might be missing out on potential revenue, if your serving lines are running smoothly, and if your labor and food dollars are being used most effectively.

Below is a practical framework around five key operational areas:

Budgets are tight, food and labor costs are volatile, and staffing is hard. In this challenging environment, school nutrition programs can’t afford to run in the red for very long. Tracking every meal sold does more than tidy up reports. It protects revenue, speeds service, reduces waste, and strengthens compliance. The good news is most of this can be managed with a modern cafeteria POS (point of sale) solution.

Join us for our annual user conference, Connect 2026! This year we’re headed to Dallas, TX from March 18-19, 2026. Get ready to learn from our product experts how you and your team can get the most from our products. 

K–12 finance departments are facing numerous challenges with staff shortages, tighter audit scrutiny, and rising parent expectations. To simplify day-to-day tasks, many schools are choosing to modernize payments using a School Commerce Platform that enables unified online and in-person payment acceptance. A system like this also helps districts  centralize financial reporting, support SIS and ERP integrations, automate reconciliation, and enforce strong controls and compliance.

For K-12 school business and finance administrators, managing fee collection efficiently is a crucial part of maintaining a district’s financial stability. However, many schools continue to rely on manual billing processes that, while familiar, hide significant added costs, increase the risk of errors, and slow down cash flow. Understanding these hidden costs and how to evaluate them is an essential step for districts to recognize the benefits of automating the fee collection process. This, in turn, will pave the way to modernize operations, improve service, and maximize resources.

What is the Current State of K-12 School Funding?

Funding for before & after-school programs in public schools in the United States presents unique challenges due to the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of K-12 school funding. These schools rely on a combination of local, state, and federal resources for funding. While nearly 87% of their budget comes from state and local dollars, federal contributions still represent a significant portion essential for schools to operate and thrive each year.

As we kick off another school year filled with promise and challenges, I’m honored to introduce myself, Rosemary Orliss, as the new leader of Heartland School Solutions. While this role is new to me, Heartland is not—I’ve been part of this incredible company for 21 years, wearing many hats (and yes, even a few hairnets!) across Marketing, Sales, Account Management, Partnerships, Payments, and Product.

Our school menu templates are now available for the 2025-26 school year. This year, we have a brand new set of designs, as well as an ADA-friendly format option.

Over the last couple of months our team hosted three webinar sessions discussing the top payment needs in 2025 & beyond. If you weren't able to attend the webinar's live be sure to take a look below to get access to recordings. 

Over 140 attendees from across the country traveled to Phoenix, AZ to attend Connect 2025. It was a time filled with education and connection - let's take a look at some of the highlights of the week!