French food services and facilities management company Sodexo is closing its food service operations at Academy School District 20 and laying off 152 local employees.

The international company, headquartered in Paris, notified the state about the layoffs that began “on or about” Monday in a written letter under Colorado’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Sodexo provided K-12 cafeteria services at D-20. 

The school district’s contract with Sodexo recently reached the end of its fourth and final option year, spokesman Mark Belcher said in a written statement Tuesday. Through a formal state-mandated request for proposal process guided by the Colorado Department of Education, the district selected a new provider, Philadelphia-based Aramark, to “assume food service operations for the 2025-26 school year,” Belcher said.

“This decision does not reflect the quality of past service providers, but rather the criteria established by the (Colorado Department of Education) and our commitment as a district to fiscal responsibility,” he wrote. 

Colorado’s WARN Act requires employers, in most cases, to provide employees with 60 days’ notice of job eliminations. In its letter dated June 11, posted to the state’s WARN website Tuesday, Sodexo said Academy D-20 notified the company on June 6 that the district would contract with Aramark for the next school year.

“Sodexo is providing less than 60 days’ notice of this action because of business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable and outside of Sodexo’s control,” the company wrote.

Most of the Sodexo employees who will be affected by the layoffs, 102, are food service workers. Other affected positions include a chef manager, cooks, goods and materials drivers, lead workers, food supervisors, catering service workers, customer service specialists, human resources and food operations managers, food service managers, food supervisors, dietitians, and clerical and utility workers.

They have the opportunity now to go to work for Aramark.

“All current foodservice employees at Academy School District 20 have been invited to apply for positions with the incoming Aramark management. We will have a career event next week for current employees and will offer other job fairs in the near future for interested members of the community,” Aramark spokeswoman Heather G. Dotchel said in a Tuesday email.

Belcher added: “Our top priority has been and will remain providing nutritious, student-centered and (U.S. Department of Agriculture)-compliant meals, and we look forward to a smooth transition as the 2025-26 school year begins.”