Two weeks ago, Monica Eng reported that a high school civics class at Roosevelt High School in Chicago was protesting the district’s sub par school food by launching a website, ”The School Lunch Project: Culinary Denial,”as well as a petition seeking to improve the food.
Last week, Eng updated the story, reporting that the Roosevelt students staged an impressive boycott in which over 900 kids spurned school lunch, instead eating granola, fruit and yogurt provided by outside supporters of their efforts. In the process, the students garnered a fair share of other media attention, including reports in the Chicago Tribune, local television, the Daily Kos and elsewhere.
In general, I’m always a little skeptical of students’ complaints about school food (because, come on, that’s what kids do) and I’ve written before on this blog about how cell phone photos can make even good (or at least acceptable) food look downright horrible.
But Eng’s original story did mention that participation in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) lunch program has signficantly declined in the last two years – despite the fact that the district now offers free lunch for all students, with no paperwork required, a change which arguably ought to have boosted participation. Those same two years also mark the debut of a new food service management company in the district, Aramark, which took over from Chartwells. (Houston ISD, my own district, also uses Aramark.)
Intrigued by these facts, I decided to dig in a little further, emailing with both CPS representatives as well as three of the Roosevelt High civics students, Ana Mendoza, Andrae Zollicoffer, and Itzel Perez. I also spent quite a bit of time looking at The School Lunch Project website to better understand what motivated the protest and what the students hope to achieve.
The Roosevelt students’ complaints and proposals are, to my mind, a little muddled. On the one hand, the students complain that the food they’re served (just two options, they say, burgers and pizza) isn’t healthy enough and contains too many chemicals. Yet at the same time they want CPS to “offer a dessert such as cheese cake, cookies, yogurt, flan, or tres leche cake,” and they also bemoan the loss of the “juice, cookies, chips, slushies, and other things they used to buy” from a fundraising kiosk that apparently was a fixture in their cafeteria. (The kiosk likely disappeared due to the recent implementation of the federal Smart Snacks in School rules, but clearly the students believe CPS is responsible.)
The students also probably didn’t look at school meal regulations before they issued some of their proposals. For example, they say they’re tired of milk and chocolate milk and want CPS to add bottled water and juice as school lunch beverages. But districts aren’t allowed to offer bottled water or juice as the beverage in the reimbursable school meal, though they must make free water available via water fountains or coolers, and they can sell bottled water and juice on an a la carte basis. Similarly, federal nutrition standards, including calorie caps, necessarily put limits on the many desserts the kids say they’d like to see.
And while the Roosevelt students complain that “the only raw meat cooked at school is chicken drumsticks,” many advocates view whole meat chicken like drumsticks to be a big improvement over highly processed nuggets and patties. (The drumsticks in question may also be antibiotic-free.) Moreover, some of the food depicted on their website doesn’t look too bad, such as this chef’s salad:
And when I questioned the Roosevelt students about being served “only burgers and pizza” day after day, they told me that in fact salad is offered every day as an alternate item.
All of that said, though, the kids clearly have some legitimate complaints about their school food. Here’s one photo allegedly showing blue plastic bits in a CPS burger:
Here’s another, showing a frozen, mushy fruit cup:
Here’s a photo of sad lunch allegedly served at a CPS elementary school, which someone sent in to The School Lunch Project website:
Moreover, the Roosevelt students firmly believe that students in more affluent high schools, such as Lincoln Park High School, are getting better food (though my review of CPS menus shows the same items being offered) and they feel there’s been a serious drop-off in quality since Aramark took over from Chartwells. They’ve also since posted on their website a more comprehensive list of the types of foods they’d like to see added to their lunch menu, some of which may be impracticable but many of which seem quite reasonable.
The students deliberately chose not to contact Aramark or CPS before launching their protest. As they told me, “We figured we’d use the “element of surprise’ because if we talked before we took action they would use meetings to drag it out and they would outlast us. We dropped the topic on them without letting anyone in on our plan.”
When I asked CPS for comment, I was told by a spokesperson that “CPS has a school lunch program that provides healthy, nutritious lunches at no cost to students throughout the district. Not only does CPS exceed federal nutrition guidelines, we also enjoy working with student and parent groups to test our meals and develop menus. CPS is happy to work with the students of Roosevelt to hear their concerns and address their needs, and look forward to meeting with them this week.” The spokesperson also outlined the many ways in which the district seeks student feedback on menus, including test-testing with a district-wide student advocacy group.
That aforementioned meeting between the Roosevelt protestors and CPS has since taken place and, at least from the students’ perspective, it didn’t go very well. According to their write-up of the meeting, they felt talked down to and disrespected, and they claim that CPS tried to place much of the blame for sub par food on the “lunch ladies” in the Roosevelt cafeteria. (I did not speak to CPS after this meeting and therefore can’t offer the district’s perspective on it here.)
Students are, of course, the ultimate consumers of school food, yet they often have the least representation in debates over setting federal meal standards or in district-wide decisions about school food menus. So, if nothing else, I applaud the Roosevelt students (and their civics teacher, Tim Meegan) for giving voice to their concerns and successfully getting the district’s attention within a matter of days.
The students are now trying to take their protest district-wide, asking students from around Chicago to boycott school lunch tomorrow, December 17th.
When I asked the Roosevelt students if there was anything else they’d like to share with my readers, they said, “We want the best for us and other schools, and we are trying to achieve our goal of getting better lunches . . . because no one deserves to get bad lunch when they try so hard to do good in school.”
[Many thanks to WBEZ reporter Monica Eng for putting me in touch with Mr. Meegan’s class, and to Roosevelt students Ana Mendoza, Andrae Zollicoffer, and Itzel Perez for taking the time to answer my questions.]
Do you love The Lunch Tray? ♥♥♥ Follow TLT on Facebook and Twitter! You can also subscribe to Lunch Tray posts, and be sure to download my FREE 40-page guide, “How to Get Junk Food Out of Your Child’s Classroom.”
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2015 Bettina Elias Siegel
Amber Austin says
Bettina,
Thank you so much for taking the time to treat this story with fairness – I doubt that mainstream media would do so. You leveraged this opportunity to educate your readers about the regulatory components that impact this situation rather than jumping on the “school food is bad” bandwagon. At the same time, you praised the students for their initiative to start the conversation.
I will be interested to see how the situation plays out.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you for that, Amber! I will definitely keep readers posted.
Ruthie Burd says
I also appreciate the curiosity that drives you to look at your subject from different angles and attempts to engage all the stakeholders.
By the time students reach high school, one can see the benefit that would have been gained by trying to involve students in the “food at school” conversation, despite CPS’ assertion that it is their own policy and practice to foster an open conversation on this subject.
So often what is required on paper is not implemented and school boards do not have a system in place to follow up to assess the real situation. What is lacking is some accountability within the system… a problem we also face in Canada. Every province has food guidelines, but there is little follow up to ensure compliance or support to address challenges. No budget allocated for this.
I do not think the fact that the food is offered universally for free means that one does not have the right to challenge the status quo. All kids at school need nutritious food to support a good afternoon of learning.
School Lunch Providers, administrators, parents and students can learn a lot about communication while making food at school better – first step – just being more receptive to open discussion and problem solving.
Of course, students will want options that do not meet… but maybe some creative thinking can result in a few more options that can meet them half way.
Anyways Bettina, you are inspiring me to become a more active blogger.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I agree with everything you’ve said here, Ruthie, and especially “I do not think the fact that the food is offered universally for free means that one does not have the right to challenge the status quo. All kids at school need nutritious food to support a good afternoon of learning.” Thanks so much for the kind words and I’m so glad to have inspired you to blog more – you make such thoughtful points here in the comments section of TLT!
Janet says
Hi. I’m a CPS parent. The Kiosk with the snacks the kids miss is actually still available at other CPS schools.
The chef salad you posted did look good. However that picture was taken because beautiful fresh produce was brought in on the day of the boycott by a very fancy produce provider here in Chicago. That is not what CPS produce looks like ever. Not even when Chartwells provided food.
My children have attended two CPS schools the quality of food at both schools was horrific and definitely got worse after Aramark took over. Produce is either rotten or too ripe and hard to eat. Not exactly appetizing, especially for small kids.
Also, Leslie Fowler did have a hand picked group of parents who were supposed to taste test food items and such but since Ms. Fowler had some bad publicity about her ties to Aramark published a little over a year ago, no meeting has taken place with parents since then, which is pretty typical of CPS in general.
I’m glad that you attempted to research here but I think maybe you should come to Chicago. I’d love to show you my kids lunch program. It is inedible but you could see that for yourself if you were here.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Hi Janet:
I know there are reports that Aramark/CPS suddenly improved the produce at Roosevelt after the protest began, but just FYI that chef salad photo was one of the first ones posted on The School Lunch Project website, pre-dating any potential improvements by CPS. That said, please know that I’m not being an apologist for CPS. I, too, live in an Aramark district and we still have a long way to go to improve our school food. I appreciate your sharing your perspective and information as a CPS parent – you’re obviously much closer to the ground than I am – and please feel free to continue to provide input on any future posts about the boycott. Thank you!