Standard Menus
Standard menu plans are comprised of a set of independent weeks. Each week contains meal offerings for the week for a certain configuration. Each week is independent of all other weeks, meaning that no changes in Week 1 can affect Week 2.
Configuration
Menu configurations can be accessed on Menu Plan Settings:
Internal name: The name used inside Gaia. Required.
Public name: The name shown on the public menu families see. Optional; defaults to the internal name if blank.
Color: Used to differentiate this menu plan in the navigation.
Grade group: Used to set menu compliance standards.
Meals: Refer to meal programs like the NSLP. Used to set the compliance standards.
Locations: Schools or sites served by the menu.
Categories: Mains and sides. Used for compliance and for public menu display.
Subcategories: Custom per school district.
Feeding figure: The total number of students served by a meal. Defaults to 100.
Include weekends: When on, weekend days appear on the menu plan. Default off.
Visibility to school managers: When on (default), school managers see the menu plan in their navigation. Turn off to keep a plan visible only to directors.
Visibility on public menu: When on (default), the menu plan appears on the public menu families see. Turn off to keep the plan internal.
Menu Plans vs School Menus
A menu plan is the master menu from which school menus are derived. When a menu plan is published, the corresponding school menus are published as copies of the menu plan. Any subsequent updates to the menu plan are also carried out on the school menus. Changes to a school menu do not affect other schools and do not affect the menu plan.
Visibility and Editing
Menu plans are only visible to Directors and they are the only ones who can edit them.
School menus are visible to directors and the school managers of their respective schools. School managers cannot edit school menus.
Menu Status and Cycle Status
Each menu plan week tracks two separate statuses. Both can change independently.
Menu Status
The publishing state of the week.
Draft: The week is being edited. Drafts are saved automatically (see Saving below) and are not visible to schools or families.
Published: The week is live. School menus for the week have been generated and are visible to schools and on the public menu.
Archived: The week is no longer in use. Archived weeks are hidden from the menu plan selector but can be accessed for reference.
When you edit a Published week, Gaia creates a Draft that captures your changes. The Published version stays live for schools and families until you publish the Draft. Publishing the Draft creates a new published version and the previous version is archived.
When you publish a Draft you can optionally enter a publish note. The note, the user who published, and the publish time are saved on the new published version and appear in the version history for that week.
Cycle Status
Only applies to cycle menus. Tracks whether a week is in sync with its cycle pattern (for example, all Week 1s identical).
On-Cycle: The week matches its cycle peers. Changes made to this week propagate to all other weeks of the same number when published with "All Weeks."
Off-Cycle: The week was published with "This Week Only" or affected by Bulk Actions, so it is no longer in sync with its cycle peers. Further changes to this week do not affect the other weeks of the same number.
For the full behavior of cycle changes after publishing, see Cycle Menus: Managing Changes After Publishing.
Editing School Menus and Off-Plan
Directors can edit school menus individually. If Menu Plan A serves Schools 1, 2, and 3, Directors can change all schools by editing the menu plan, or change one school by editing that school's menu. School-level changes do not affect other schools or the menu plan.
When a Director publishes changes to a school menu, that school menu week becomes Off-Plan: it no longer follows the menu plan and will not receive updates when the menu plan is republished.
School menus go Off-Plan only on the specific week edited. A school menu can be Off-Plan on one week and still receive updates for other weeks where it remains on plan.
Archiving Menu Plans
When a menu plan is no longer in use (for example, at the end of the year), it can be archived. Archived menu plans:
Cannot be edited.
Are hidden from the menu plan selector.
Can still be opened for reference.
Cause all corresponding school menus to be archived as well.
To view an archived menu plan, unarchive it first.
Saving
Changes to menu plans are saved automatically. There is no save button; edits work like a Google Doc.
Changes to a Published menu are saved in a Draft. When viewing the Draft, you can toggle to see the Published version. Switching back and making changes to the Published version discards the existing Draft and creates a new one with the latest change.
Past Menus
Every menu day is only editable if it is in the present or the future.
You cannot publish updates to a menu week from last month.
When publishing changes to the current week, changes take place only on the present and future days. Days in the past accept edits in the Draft view but the changes are discarded at publish time.
Cycle Menus
Cycle menus work similarly to standard menus with a few differences highlighted in this section. Read the Standard Menus section above first.
Setup
Cycle menu plans have a cycle duration, a start date, and an end date.
A 4-week cycle menu is comprised of Weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4. The school year repeats as 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on.
A cycle always starts with Week 1.
Cycle Weeks
Unlike a standard menu, cycle menu weeks are linked. Changes to Week 1 are carried out to all cycle Week 1s.
Example: a 2-week cycle starts on January 1. The first week is Week 1, the second is Week 2, the third is back to 1, and the fourth is back to 2. Changes made to the first week (Week 1) also appear in the third week.
This works backward as well. Changes made to the third week appear in the first, as long as both are in the future.
Publishing a Week 1 change publishes all Week 1s in the present and future.
Going Off-Cycle
Directors can publish updates to a single week without affecting the rest of the cycle. This takes that menu plan week Off-Cycle.
If a Week is Off-Cycle, future republishing of the anchor cycle week does not update the Off-Cycle week.
School menus related to the Off-Cycle week remain on plan. Further updates published to the Off-Cycle week are still published on those school menus.
Skipping a Cycle Week
If a whole week of service is cancelled (a holiday week, district closure, or other one-off), you can skip that cycle week. Skipping removes the week's offerings, pushes the cycle pattern forward to the following week, and republishes downstream production records. You can also undo a skip from the same menu. See Skipping a Cycle Week for the full walkthrough.
Changing Cycle Length
The number of weeks in a cycle and the cycle start date can't be changed after a cycle menu is created. Changing them would require Gaia to delete and rebuild all the downstream production records, so these settings are locked once the menu exists. (Other settings, like the end date and adding a meal template, can be edited.)
If you need a different cycle length — for example, switching a 3-week cycle to a 2-week cycle — create a new menu plan with the new length, build it from the same template, publish it, and then archive or delete the old plan. Many districts also keep separate menu plans for programs that run on different cycle lengths (for example, a 4-week breakfast and a 2-week lunch).
The Public Menu
The public menu is the family-facing version of your school menus. It's the website parents, students, and the community visit to see what's being served — and it updates automatically whenever you publish changes to a menu plan.
Each menu plan can be:
Shown or hidden on the public menu using the Visibility on public menu toggle on the menu plan.
Renamed for families using the Public name field (e.g., internal "Oct-Nov 25-26", public "Fall Menu"). If left blank, the internal name is used.
Districts can:
Build a styled, branded public menu using the Template Editor (colors, fonts, layouts, daily-offering sidebars, custom announcement panels).
Share the menu as a direct link or embed it as an inline frame in the district website.
Print or export to PDF with options to control density, font size, and how many weeks fit on a page.
For full setup instructions, see Public Menu Set Up. For the family-facing experience (how parents read the menu, filter by allergen, switch languages, and print), see About the Public Menu (for Families and the Community).
Compliance
Gaia follows the nutrition standards set by the USDA for the various meal programs. Each meal and week shows compliance status based on the grade group and the USDA meal program.
The bottom of every meal card shows the compliance status relative to a meal component (Grain, Meat, Vegetable: Red/Orange, Vegetable: Starchy, Vegetable: Legume, Vegetable: Dark Green, Vegetable: Other, Fruit, Milk) and cost.