After 14 years of running Vashon Island’s busiest restaurant, Vashon Island School District (VISD) Food Services Director Lisa Cyra has announced her retirement from the district, as she embarks on the next chapter of her career in food.
“As I’ve reflected on all these years I’ve been here, I realized that there have been 14 gifts,” said Cyra. “Every year is a new flavor, a new something to work on, some wins, some losses, and each year is never like the last. That feeds my soul because each year creates a new opportunity to discover something else.”
During her tenure at VISD, Cyra has stewarded and grown one of the few “made from scratch” food service programs in Washington public schools. With little footprint to draw from, Cyra and her team have throughout the years provided Vashon students with freshly baked bread and home-cooked meals, all the while complying with the state’s reporting requirements.
“We still have to record in this archaic fashion that the state requires, and that is all about chicken nuggets and packaged fruit,” said Cyra. “How do you do that with chicken shawarma? It was a steep learning curve, but I was so committed for kids to eat real food. I was passionate about it and had a lot of people behind me helping out to make it all happen.”
A case of senioritis has not gripped Cyra as the months of the school year wind down. Cyra, Superintendent Dr. Slade McSheehy, and a couple of Cyra’s food services team members recently took a trip to the Coupeville School District, which has one of the other “scratch” food service programs in the state. While there, Cyra and her team traded stories, ideas, recipes, and thoughts with their Coupeville counterparts.
Cyra views the kitchens at VISD as classrooms for the food services program. During her tenure, more than just lunch has happened each day behind the walls. A few culinary-minded high school students join the food services team as interns each semester. Cyra has worked to increase the district’s local partnership with Matsuda Farms and hopes that someday, the district can take field trips to learn from farmer Ryan about local food and farming on Vashon.
“From here on out, this program will be someone else’s vision,” said Cyra. “But I am confident, with the work my team and I have put in over all these years, that it will continue to thrive and grow.”
Cyra admits that she hasn’t accomplished everything she has wanted at VISD, and could easily return next school year, and the next, and so on.
“I’ve always known I had something else up my sleeve,” said Cyra. “While I have loved this job, it is time for me, before I’m too old, to do one last thing.”
For someone who has spent the majority of her working career in some form of a kitchen, it should be of little surprise that the last card involves food.
For Cyra, it is a return to her roots as a pastry chef. Her next venture will feature a host of French-inspired pastries, something she is excited for the community to enjoy.
The end of the school year is still a few months away, however, and that means Cyra cannot look too far into the future. Each school day in session means a catered meal, from scratch, for 800 hungry mouths during the busiest lunch rush imaginable.
It’s just another day in the kitchen.
