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The Cost of a Home Economics Food Program in the State of Utah

The purposes of this paper are to provide a guid.e line for determining the budget for a Consumer and Homemaking foods program in the secondary schools of Utah, and to suggest some food buying procedures. In order to achieve these purposes, questionnaires were sent to the 167 ,junior and senior high schools in the state. Of the questionnaires returned, 99 were complete enough to be utilized for the study; 48 were from junior high schools and 51 from senior high schools. For analysis the schools were grouped according to whether they were a junior or senior high school and then into large, medium or small schools based on the total number of students in each school.
From the information on the completed questionnaires, cost for one 36-weeks course in a foods program and the cost per student per hour for each school was determined. The averages were then found for each category. It was determined that except for the small junior high schools the cost per 36-weeks course appears to increase with a decrease in the size of the school. The figures indicate that there is an inverse relationship between the cost per student per hour and the population of the schools. Even though the larger schools have a greater total budget than the smaller schools, they offer more courses and serve more students which results in a lower cost per student per hour and fewer dollars involved in each 36-weeks course.
It was also determined that the schools which purchased staple food supplies through the school district appeared to have lower costs per student per hour. The results indicated that it was not necessarily cheaper to purchase food at a large chain store as compared to a small local store. Allocating a budget on a total year basis seems to result in a lower total budget per year. The schools which operated on more money per student hour indicated a difference in their purchasing of food which included the higher priced meats and preparing more complete meals.
It is suggested that teachers and administrators be aware of the quality of a foods program in relation to the costs of the program, and the budget allowed for the outcomes desired.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-5223
Date01 May 1974
CreatorsWinterton, Joyce Leavitt
PublisherDigitalCommons@USU
Source SetsUtah State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceAll Graduate Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu).

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