Full Circle: Lauren Woodard's Journey from District Nutrition to Cybersoft

Lauren Woodard never planned on a career in district nutrition. When her mother, who worked in the school nutrition department at Virginia Beach City Public Schools, encouraged her to sign up as a substitute, Lauren wasn't sold.

"At the time, I thought I was way too cool to be a 'lunch lady'!" Lauren said.

Today, Lauren is a Regional Account Executive at Cybersoft Technologies, but that temporary gig became the foundation of her career. Like many members of our team, she spent years on the district side before joining us. That firsthand experience shapes how she supports customers and how our products continue to improve.

From District Nutrition Substitute to Supervisor

Lauren's first assignment was processing free and reduced meal applications, which were still entered manually. She loved the energy of the department, so when a position opened paying invoices for the milk and bread delivered daily to all 83 sites, she stepped up to the plate.

From there, she became the substitute coordinator, placing staff in cafeterias across the district. She then spent about 10 years as inventory supervisor, overseeing district-wide inventory, menus, and production records. Finally, she became a supervisor over 20 sites, responsible for everything from staffing to menu compliance and HACCP. Through it all, her favorite part was the people.

"I just enjoyed going school to school to visit with them," Lauren said. "We had great managers, and we would just have the best time working together."

Paper Records and Late Nights

Before PrimeroEdge (the sister platform to SchoolCafé, both operating under the Cybersoft umbrella), the district relied on paper production records and a generic aging system. The workload was heavy. Even though serving wrapped up around 1:30, some managers stayed until 7:00 p.m., finishing inventory and production records by hand. The pressure grew when the district expanded scratch cooking and began offering five to six entrees a day.

When the district purchased PrimeroEdge, the director asked Lauren to learn the software and train every manager. She picked it up right away and became the go-to expert, training staff on new releases in every role she held afterward. Not every kitchen adopted it at the same pace, and some managers kept parallel notebooks at first. But the ones who dove in saw the biggest difference.

How Production Changed the Day

The Production module eliminated much of the double work. Instead of filling out a production record and then separately drawing down inventory, managers could do both at once.

"In the production module, you just hit the button, and it withdraws for you automatically," Lauren says. "That right there frees up time. There's always something that needs to be done in the kitchen."

That reclaimed time went back into cleaning, prepping, and offering more menu items. Because Production connects to the POS menu grid, cashiers ring up only what's planned, and end-of-day withdrawals reflect the actual number of meals served.

Administrative reviews became far simpler too. Previously, sites sent stacks of production records through interoffice mail, or supervisors drove to schools to review the state's two-week cycle page by page. With Production, supervisors could review every site from the district office.

"The software tells you if you're compliant or not," Lauren said.

Bringing the Cafeteria to the Conversation

Today, Lauren's background gives her credibility that no product demo can match.

Whether it’s SchoolCafé or PrimeroEdge, "I can point out things in the software that I know made my job or my district's jobs easier," Lauren said.

When she meets with districts, she starts by asking about their struggles and what they wish their software could do.

One of her favorite questions for kitchen managers is how long it takes them to get out the door at the end of the day. She shows them how Production can auto-fill tomorrow's record, then complete today's record and inventory withdrawal in about two minutes.

"And then you're out the door!" Lauren said.

Lauren is one of many Cybersoft team members who have worked in school nutrition. Their real-world insight helps shape our products and builds trust with the districts we serve, because they understand the job firsthand.  

As Lauren puts it, "No one seems to understand the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into a cafeteria employee's job." At Cybersoft, many of us do, and that's exactly why we build what we build—two solutions with connected tools, designed to streamline your operations.

Ready to diffuse the chaos? Let’s chat about your program, and how SchoolCafé can help!