Those of you following my recaps of this season’s Food Revolution” have seen me refer more than once to “Hipster Charter School Dude,” aka Mike McGalliard. Mike is the CEO of Mentor L.A. which, under contract with Los Angeles USD, runs West Adams High School, the one LAUSD venue where Jamie Oliver has been able to film this year.
In my recap last week, I had an aside where I got a little snarky (OK, really a lot snarky) about Mike’s wardrobe choices, accusing him of having an overly “studied” casual look on the show each week. Given that I strive to keep ad hominem attacks out of my comments section, it was a real lapse in judgment to engage in that sort of thing on the blog, even if it was just a lame attempt at humor. My only excuse is that it’s all too easy to forget that the folks we see on television are real people with real lives and feelings.
And also with real computers and real internet connections.
UH OH.
That’s right, Hipster Charter School Dude himself dropped by TLT yesterday to leave a comment on my wardrobe critique. OMG! You can imagine how mortified I felt, and I immediately emailed Mike to humbly apologize.
Well, as it turns out, Hipster Charter School Dude doesn’t work for a charter school (he informs me that West Adams isn’t considered a charter school despite Mentor L.A.’s role) and he’s also just an incredibly good sport. We chatted yesterday both in the comments section of TLT and via email, and with this consent I’m sharing it all here.
In his comment on TLT he wrote:
I’ll admit the v-neck/blazer combo is in bad taste and since the show my wife has permanently banned it from my collection. But point of correction- West Adams isn’t a charter school. Its a regular district school that my organization operates on a performance contract.
I can’t comment on the storylines at Patras and elsewhere, but I can tell you that the storyline at West Adams is the real deal. In fact we micromanaged the production and even the editing to ensure honest portrayal, and that the children were always empowered participants.
Why we did it? Because 42% of our 15 year old girls are obese. Schools are by no means the only problem here. But schools can fix this.
And PS- I like how studied my studied- casual look is by the author. Stay-tuned to episode 6 and you’ll see my glasses change!
I responded in the comments:
First of all, welcome to The Lunch Tray and let me humbly apologize for my unforgivable snark about your wardrobe. I can see you’ve taken it like a good sport, and with no apparent hard feelings, for which I’m grateful.
I’m actually really glad you’re here because for those of us watching Food Revolution, it’s often hard to tell where and to what extent there’s manipulation of the viewer for the sake of heightening the drama (a given for all reality shows). I’m a school food blogger who is deeply sympathetic to parents and students who rely on school food, but from involvement in school food reform my own district and in talking with others who are knowledgable in the area, I”m also sympathetic to school districts operating under the National School Lunch Program. I feel that in Jamie’s show, schools/districts sometimes take an unfair rap for problems inherent in the program.
In the particular instance I cited in my review, was it your impression that LAUSD revoked Jamie’s permits due to the social studies class that caused the students to get emotional? Because that’s exactly what the show led us all to believe, and I find it hard to swallow. It seems to me that LAUSD was opposed to Jamie’s filming from day one because it feared being embarrassed, as Huntington, WVA was embarrassed, in ways that were sometimes fair and sometimes quite unfair.
Any insight you can share would be most appreciated, and thank you again for stopping by TLT.
– Bettina
PS: And thanks for the clarification re: West Adams’s status – it was never clear to me from the show its precise relationship to LAUSD.
He wrote back in the comments:
Bettina – I didn’t see the narrative to imply that Jamie’s permits were revoked because of that Social Studies class, just coincidental timing. Though I can understand how you see it that way. The permits were suddenly revoked in a frenzy of confusion – which the show does capture pretty well. We were all shocked because filming had been moving along in good faith, and the Supt had full knowledge of what was being filmed. We supplied him with story lines, lesson plans, exact film locations all well in advance. So it was disheartening, and we felt “played” to suddenly have the permits revoked without warning right in the middle of some great educational moments.
The social studies class was moving. When i heard that students were in tears, we quickly visited the class to ask if they ‘understood’ what it meant to show such emotion on camera, that they would be on ABC, etc. They confirmed they were proud of the moment and even brought Jamie back to read him letters about the experience. It is very, very moving and will show up on the next episode.
And from what I hear today, flavored milk is officially banned by LAUSD now.
Our email exchange overlapped with that comment, and in it I’d asked:
Before you go back and comment on the blog, I just want to add that I think there are some viewers/readers who are a little soured on Jamie’s show this season. But it’s clear that you felt having the show filmed at West Adams would be a good thing, so I would be very interested in hearing from you what you think your students got out of the experience, whether you think any lasting change was achieved, whether any kids have made concrete changes in their lifestyles post-Jamie, etc. etc. So please feel free to go beyond just answering the specific question I asked (about the filming permit) if you’d like to do so.
And Mike responded via email:
I can tell you here that a few things have happened, since Jamie. Flavored milk is now banned in LAUSD. We are swapping out standard vending machines for those that sell a healthier product. We are making water more accessible on campus. (Can you believe that students have easier access to sugary juice than water?). Jamie also built a garden on campus that students and teachers are folding into a healthy eating curriculum. And finally, with the American Heart Association, we are building a permanent teaching kitchen near the school as a place for community members to learn more about healthy eating.
Jamie’s work really was first rate… I can vouch for him and his team as far as West Adams is concerned. How far it all goes in making lasting change, I don’t know. We are asking the district to let us pilot a scratch cooking model, whereby the cafeteria workers are trained with new skills, and all food is prepared fresh daily onsite. My team sees an example of that in N. Cali, which is a part of this Friday’s episode 5.
I’m really glad to hear that West Adams High regards the “Food Revolution” experience as a positive one and that it sees concrete changes as a result of its participation. (I still feel that the show created a false impression about the permit revocation, though, but I appreciate Mike’s behind-the-scenes clarifications.) I’m hoping Mike will keep in touch with TLT and let us know if the changes have a long term positive impact on West Adams students and their families.
On a related note, yesterday I shared on TLT’s Facebook page a new article from Dana Woldow (“Jamie Oliver: You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself“) taking issue with J.O. over his sharp criticism in the last episode of former LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines. I’m curious to know if Mike has any thoughts about this piece, given how close he was to the whole Jamie vs. Cortines standoff. If he does share any views with me, I’ll certainly post them here.
And from here on out, no more wardrobe critiques on TLT! As I wrote to Mike:
When I imagine what a snarky observer might write about my daily wardrobe and grooming (that of a harried stay-at-home mom/writer — you can only imagine), I really don’t think I’d survive the experience.
In other words, bloggers in ratty shorts and t-shirts shouldn’t throw stones.
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Bettina Elias Siegel
Dana Woldow says
Not to quibble, but as of July 1st it will be state law in California that all schools must provide free drinking water to their students in the cafeteria, so that change has nothing whatever to do with Jamie Oliver.
Jennifer says
Seriously, they didn’t have free drinking water in the cafeterias before? That’s so sad! I don’t think I have enough fingers to count the number of drinking fountains in my old schools… they were everywhere. There was even a sink and faucet in the cafetaria for student use. (Washing hands, filling water bottles, rinsing lunch containers, etc.) I couldn’t imagine going through school without those essentials.
Mike McGalliard says
Bettina – Yes, I read Dana’s piece. It was popular among some of the Board offices in LAUSD who are defenders of Ray Cortines. People respect Ray in LAUSD because he led the district through what is historically one of its most challenging times. He is a pretty fearless guy. The problem with Dana’s piece is that she falls into the same trap she blames Jamie for: melodrama. She heroizes Ray and villainizes Jamie. Ray is a quintessential “public servant,” maybe even best of the old guard, but he’s no hero.
My only real problem with Ray is that he insulated the district, and his decisions around Jamie reflected this. His flaw is that he thought the district could “get it right” without help from the outside.
The “banning of all filming” when Jamie was in town was a knee-jerk decision that was based on a very oversimplified assessment of what Jamie was up to. My parents and students begged Jamie to come into West Adams and are extremely grateful he did. These aren’t silly star-hounds and celeb chef groupies. Most of them never heard of the naked chef. But he showed them enormous love and respect, and they felt they had an advocate within a system that has neglected them.
Ray is well intentioned, but he made an enormous mistake on this one. He didn’t have to open up his big central kitchen for the ABC cameras to come rolling in, but he took an arrogant hard line (“we got it right,” “there’s nothing to learn from Jamie”). LAUSD’s snarky PR guy didn’t help either. This is not how you act when someone as internationally respected as Jamie Oliver comes with a helping hand.
At West Adams, we took that middle ground. We didn’t allow Jamie into the cafeteria, but we worked with him to create lessons that get kids talking about food. It was an eye-opener for me and most of America who watches the show, to see just what our kids don’t know, to see how many are touched by diet related disease, and how few if any options exist to help them. But the District shut down all this too. That was wrong. Period.
I’m not happy with Dana’s conclusion either – delegating the problem back up to the “powers that be” and absolving everyone else from role or blame. Let’s find solutions.
CarolineSF says
Hi West Adams hipster dude — Did Oliver’s operation make donations to the school or anything of that nature, aside from the interesting education benefits to the students? (Maybe he can come to my kids’ school…)
Mike McGalliard says
Caroline – yes, they did. They donated a garden on campus, and will be building a teaching kitchen in the community near by for my schools and families.
Dana Woldow says
Hi Mike
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve been working as a volunteer in the San Francisco public schools since 1991 (when Cortines was here), the last 9 years devoted to school food, and my three kids went through the public schools K-12. I have been through 6 Superintendents and countless top level bureaucrats in that time and made plenty of enemies myself – just so you know that I am no knee-jerk supporter of school districts or school bureaucracies. I am at the top of many administrators’ most hated list here (and damn proud of it!) because of my long standing advocacy for better meals, and I know well that the progress our nutrition committee has made with improving food choices for kids at school here would not have happened without a “take no prisoners” style. But in all of my years of successful advocacy, I have never stooped to the equivalent of JO’s completely unnecessary coda to episode 4 “Ramon Cortines you should be ashamed of yourself.” That was just completely over the top and was the trigger for my writing what I did.
I have no issue with Jamie Oliver publicizing the fact that school food in the US needs to be better. My issue is that Oliver never explains how this system came to be, and the mechanisms that keep it in place, including:
– Congress, which fails to adequately fund school meals, forcing school districts to rely mostly on USDA commodities and precooked processed food, and which eliminated the funding for schools to repair or replace their kitchen equipment back in the 1980’s, and never restored it in anything more than a piecemeal fashion, again leading to a dependence on precooked processed food.
-The USDA, which oversees the school meal programs and enforces the labyrinthine rules and regulations, and whose name includes the word “agriculture” but not the words “children” “health”, or “nutrition”. When there is a conflict between serving the interests of Big Agriculture and serving the interests of school kids, whose side do you think the USDA comes down on?
-The Department of Education, which has for years pushed an agenda that places paramount importance on schools’ test scores, especially in reading and math, leaving no time for the nutrition education which is such an important part of helping children learn to make sensible eating choices.
-This country’s near total absence of regulations on advertising to children; according to the American Academy of Pediatrics , the average child sees more than 20,000 commercials each year, often for high-fat, high-sugar and high-salt snacks and foods.
-A dysfuctional food system which provides bazillions of dollars in subsidies for crops like corn, cotton, soybeans and rice, but precious little to growers of fruits and vegetables, or as the federal government prefers to call them, “specialty crops”.
Why isn’t Jamie Oliver connecting the dots for his viewers so that they can see where the real problem lies with school food – not with the schools themselves, but with the major players who control the system? Probably because that kind of change is hard, and demonizing the little guy – the local student nutrition director and local radio DJ last year, or the small restaurant operator and local school superintendent this year – is easier and less risky than taking on the real “bad guys” – the elected officials, the giant Agribusiness players, the networks that broadcast all of those fast food and junk food ads to our kids and also, oh yes, broadcast Jamie Oliver’s shows….No, much easier to make the little guy the villain here.
That’s my gripe with Jamie Oliver. Despite having this huge media megaphone at his disposal, he runs like a scared rabbit from confronting the real, intractable problems facing school food reform, and instead makes it all about blaming the people who have the least control over the situation.
I am not, as you claim, absolving everyone else from all responsibility (my appearance on the hate list of so many local school admins is testament to my history of holding people here responsible), but the PRIMARY responsibility for the mess this country is in when it comes to food, nutrition, obesity and health, has very little to do with what goes on in school cafeterias. School menu changes or lessons on eating better are like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
So long as Big Food has unfettered access to our kids minds via the media, so long as this country considers corn and soy crops to be nurtured while fruits and vegetables are marginalized as “specialty crops”, so long as school meal programs are underfunded and test scores are held to be the only thing that matters in education, we are going to continue to see unhealthy kids turn into unhealthy adults. Bashing Raman Cortines does nothing to help with that.
Billy says
Well said.
Billy says
However and this introduces more of a questionable idea, targeting the major players in the system is more difficult if you have nothing successful to back your ideas with. Jamie is currently targeting schools and communities on a smaller scale to try to convince people that nutritious eating can be done in affordable ways. He doesn’t have the man power to effectively implement change in legislation to adjust food laws in the US. So targeting the ‘big players’ comes later.
And besides, it’s television. There always needs to be a protagonist(s) and antagonists.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Billy: I know he doesn’t have the power to change things on a national scale, of course, but I do wish with respect to school food specifically that he’d at least mention those national issues now and then so that people got the bigger picture. Otherwise well meaning viewers are left thinking that flaws in school food are the fault of people who have little or no control over it. But in terms of what folks eat at home and in restaurants — I agree that working on a small scale makes sense.
Lauren says
For what it’s worth…I love Mike’s style haha. V-neck + blazer = fine by me!
Karen Frenchy says
Me too ! ^_^
anna says
..and this makes three! The guys got style! 🙂
anna says
I want to say short and sweet that I absolutely support Mike. You are a breath of fresh air and we can only hope that one day YOU are in Ray Cortines seat (or someone like minded to you). Dana, with all do respect, you admit in your article that many have been trying to change the way kids are fed in schools for years, so how has that worked out? In my view, not so good. Who knows just how long people have been trying to effect change in this area, but I suspect at least a decade. I have no idea the efforts made, however, I do know that they have not worked. As an outsider, I see nothing happening. You should be happy that you finally have someone with some clout, celeb and money on the side of the kids and you should not be complaining about it no matter what he says about someone who is or isn’t your friend. After all, this is about WHAT IS RIGHT FOR THE KIDS. Not what is right for Dana or Mike or Ray or Jamie. Jamie is in no way hurting the kids but in every way helping them. Thanks to Jamie and Mike for such valiant efforts in spite of a leadership resistant to change. (although on a side note I applaud the LAUSD for no longer offering flavored milks! they never should have in the first place! great work!!)
Melissa House says
I have to agree with Ms. Woldow, if you have done any research on the school lunch program, or the marketing of food towards children, ag. subsidies, and the list goes on as stated above, JO’s attempt is going through the back door of the system the government created and blaming the super for his problems. My question is why did JO not do his research before coming to America, and do the right thing, and take his complaint to Washington like things are done here. Bless the man for teaching America kids lack nutritional education and pointing out our high fat diets excluding school, but lets get to the real solutions and quit blaming others around him. Ms. Woldow’s statement for lack of funding for kitchen equipment is mark on. Our school systems are not what they use to be and the USDA and corporations took care of that. Why can we not have real professional help in the kitchen? Why does every school not grow a garden? There are many questions that need to be address and essentially the most important one of all, the $ to do it. Our economy is not in the best shape of all right now while California and now Texas are firing teachers due to budget shortfall, so JO’s timing is a bit off.
I believe it take s small movement within. We cannot make a swooping change, change comes in waves with movement. If like the TLT, or Fed Up with School Lunch blogs keep their pace, people will take notice and take action. I personally plan to start a garden in every school I teach at, and show other schools how to. It takes getting teacher organized and identifying the problems. Like I said waves….then real change will come.
It is true, no water is offered in any school, you pay for it at lunch. And, I don’t think TLT needed to apologize for calling out Mr. McGalliard dress code. Granted it is California and we all know too well they are the most laid back state in the nation, but I personally called him out ever episode for his attire. Sorry Mr. Galliard, but as a CEO and as a teacher, I believe you should be in a tie. You are a figure head for our children and they should always be addressed in business attire. The t-shirt thing is so high school. That is what my kid wears. Not a CEO. You will gain more respect from your staff, students, and TV views had you dressed differently. And that is coming from a tie-dye wearing mother of 2. But when I got to work, it is professionalism all the way, not excuse. I do respect you, and I am glad to see you post on TLT. I do believe you care about your students, and tha’ts +A in my book.
Kim says
Melissa, what subject do you teach if you don’t mind sharing with us?
Melissa House says
I don’t currently teach right now due to low demand for Family Consumer Science teachers. I did teach one year for my intern hour for TTU in 2009. I am a substitute now. I am looking for a teaching job and my certification is food science, nutrition, and hospitality. I have worked in the food industry for over 20 years as a manager. I wanted to work in the school cafeterias as a manager at one time, but most schools use major companies to run their programs not the school. I share a huge interest in what children eat. My goal now is the 30 year project, because I feel our children today are growing up malnourished due to processed foods. GMO’s, and HFCS. If we keep up this current pace, our children will die 15 years younger than us.
kristy says
I respectfully disagree about Mike needing to wear a tie to be professional or to garner more respect. It’s probably a broader debate, but I believe Mike dressed completely appropriately given his environment and job — his role is to be a figurehead, yes, but it’s also to be relatable (and relevant) to teenagers and to parents.
By and large, business attire no longer means wearing ties any more than it means lugging around a hard, rectangular briefcase or using a legal pad to take notes.
I personally think if he’d worn a suit and tie he’d be taken *less* seriously by everyone (more like he was posturing), especially given that he works in CA.
Hazel says
“My question is why did JO not do his research before coming to America, and do the right thing, and take his complaint to Washington like things are done here. ”
Because that wouldn’t have worked. An under-under-under secretary would say, thank you very much for your complaint, Mr Oliver. We value your opinion. Then it would be buried and forgotten. Jamie’s all about grass-roots. He did the same thing in the UK. The lunch ladies he worked with here – they didn’t have the power either, but he got a system up and running for fresh and healthy school food before he went to the British government. Now, he could go to our government because he has credibility here and also England is something like less than a third the size of California. It’s tiny. Getting things done is much easier. Plus he had already demonstrated that it could work – our government would have told him to get lost if he’d gone to them straight away, celebrity or no celebrity.
The US government is something different entirely (I imagine trying to work with them is like trying to waltz with an elephant) and he was in no way established in the US. Why should the US government listen to him and his crazy ideas? He’s not even a citizen! I would guess that’s why he went grass-roots instead. His work demonstrates that actually, you CAN do grass-roots and have change. You don’t have to fight the federal government. The little changes can spread, get bigger, more people do it, the federal government might then take an interest and then maybe change can happen on a federal level. Which I believe it has, no? 4 billion over 10 years or something? Jamie’s strategy was clearly one that works. I should think people had been trying to talk to the federal government before about this. It hadn’t worked. When something doesn’t work, you try something new, and he did.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Hazel – Sorry for the late reply – I’m just catching up on a lot of comments.
I don’t disagree with you – I think we need both kinds of efforts: grassroots movements AND pressure on the federal government. I don’t think you can just ignore the latter effort (despite how hard it is to bring about change at that level) because the hard reality is that it is the federal government that provides the vast majority of funding for school meals and, in general, better food (and the labor and facilities required to prepare it) simply costs more.
Thanks for sharing your view here – it’s always great to get the perspective of readers outside the US.
Hazel says
I agree! Attacking it from both sides is really the best way – attack it from as many sides as you can and maybe you’ll get through somewhere. 🙂 I have huge admiration for anyone who is able to try and fight the federal government – it must involve the most immense levels of frustration.
The money was definitely a big issue here too. Although Jamie’s plans were great, the money simply wasn’t there. They could come in on budget with the ingredients mostly, but many schools in the poorest areas didn’t even have any kitchen at all (they were taken out in the 80s to save money) and scratch cooking meant the lunch cooks had to work longer and they weren’t given overtime because there was no money. Jamie also had to try and train them at a boot camp to cook his food – again, because there was no government money. So after Jamie did his grass-roots thing, he followed it up by going to the government and presenting the idea. And then the year after that he had to go back again and demand more because it wasn’t enough, and he had to demand a longer-term plan as well. Originally the plan was for just three years, but he persuaded them to commit to ten.
Currently, he’s back on it again because our current government has said that certain schools don’t have to follow the school food regulations the previous government put in (this includes a third of all secondary school) and so the junk food is creeping back in. They have this ridiculously naive idea that these schools will do what’s best for their kids in terms of food (I don’t know why on earth they think that given that before Jamie they were serving them burgers and processed nuggets every day). It would be so nice if they did that, but ultimately, schools always struggle for cash and selling crap to kids is a great way to raise money.
Mike McGalliard says
Anna – thank you very much for your kind response (and to Karen and Lauren to for the style shout out!).
For Dana, I’d just like to say that I’m not all that sure where our opinions differ, except whether or not Jamie is useful to a system like LAUSD, or maybe where the majority burden lies for making necessary and immediate changes to what our children eat. On the first matter, I guess one either loves Jamie or hates him. But I really like the way Anthony Bourdain talks about Jamie in his latest book – Jamie was a guy Bourdain despised. But even Bourdain can’t deny that Jamie loves children and has given a significant portion of his life to make the lives of children better.
And in terms of responsibility for making change? Yes, take on agribusiness. Take on government regulators. Take on legislators and funders. Take on advertising. But don’t underestimate what individual people at the local level (especially someone as powerful as big district Supt) can do. 1) Get rid of flavored milk. 2) Get water into schools. 3) Increase lunch time. 4) Cancel your contracts with Pepsi and the like. 4) Invite a guy like Jamie to the table (who knows…). 5) Try scratch cooking (most of LA schools have full functioning kitchens – so give it a try). I don’t like excuses for inaction when I’m fighting a health epidemic in my schools. So loosen up the ties, see how liberating a v-neck can be, and let’s innovate.
Dana Woldow says
Mike, I am a little put off by your charge of “excuses for inaction” when I have never offered such. In fact, my website, http://www.peachsf.org, offers free advice for anyone wanting to get started working for change in their own district, including those who do not have the vast financial resources of a group like MLA Partners (aka LA’s Promise), who operate your school.
For those who don’t have the time to read up on this very noble endeavor, which so far as I can tell is similar in many ways to Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, or SF’s New Day for Learning schools, this from your website encapsulates it:
“LA’s Promise works with schools to manage resources efficiently, equitably, and with a mindset of accountability. These resources include private sector dollars, the community partners that support LA’s Promise schools, and the millions of public sector dollars that flow from the state and federal governments.”
http://tinyurl.com/6cay73n
Those “private sector dollars” run to nearly $10 million since 2007, much of it for West Adams but also for the couple of other schools which the organization also runs, no?
http://tinyurl.com/63r9wyg
Again, I am in no way criticizing the mission of LA’s Promise, but your group does not have a monopoly on serving disadvantaged students; all urban districts (and some non urban districts) serve large numbers of impoverished and students, English learners, special ed, homeless youth, kids with incarcerated parents, and other at-risk students who are more expensive to educate. Without your outside resources to fall back on, it is hard for these schools to follow your blithe advice to just dump the Pepsi contract, get water into schools, increase lunch time, or scratch cook.
Schools rely on revenue from vending contracts to fund some of the services and activities which you are probably able to afford with your outside support. Increasing lunch time requires increasing the length of the school day, and that requires not only support from the teachers’ union but also much more money to pay teachers and other school staff for their longer hours. Even providing the free drinking water in the cafeteria, which will be required under California law starting in 2 weeks, is so financially challenging for schools which don’t even have the required triple sink for washing reusable containers like water pitchers, that my school district is in the process of applying for a waiver so that we can have several more years to try to find the money to pay for necessary plumbing changes at our over 100 schools. And I won’t even get into the added expense of scratch cooking which depends on a lot more than just fully functioning kitchens – it also requires kitchen staff with actual culinary training, and who are higher paid than someone who just opens cans and heats up frozen food.
That is not to say that schools should continue to sell soda (and in California, as you well know, it has been illegal since 2009 for even a high school to sell soda on campus during the school day) but their contracts “with Pepsi” generally are for the sale of bottled water and 100% fruit juice. Our schools here took a huge financial hit when we forced them to drop the soda back in 2003-04, well ahead of state law. We felt it was important enough for the kids’ health and ability to focus that they not be hyped up on sugar and caffeine all day long, but it did come at a financial cost, and we did not have the cushion of community dollars to fall back on; some schools lost extra curricular funding because of it and have yet to fully recover. We will never be able to increase the lunch period because of the huge cost of paying teachers and other staff for a longer day. We are trying to move towards scratch cooking too, but the financial challenges of that will be enormous as well.
I am a realist. I don’t believe in telling people to “just do it” without spelling out exactly what the challenges will be and how to go about addressing them. It does everyone a disservice when the barriers which must be overcome in order to effect change are minimized. This does not constitute “excuses for inaction” but rather a clear-eyed assessment of what schools without the financial and other resources of West Adams Prep HS face trying to move forward.
And best of luck with your gala fundraiser in September honoring Ryan Seacrest; he is the co-producer of Jamie Oliver’s show, right?
Mike McGalliard says
You probably know, Dana, that there are answers for each problem you raise. (E.g., a longer lunch doesn’t require a longer school day, but simply reorganization that can be done at the local school level, or mandated by a school board across an entire district. And regarding the training of kitchen staff for scratch cooking – check out Orfalea Foundation which does just this for free.) Given your background, I would guess you know the answers faster and better than I do. So if you are simply pointing out how complex the problem is, then I agree. But if you are saying the problem is too complex to solve with urgency, then I don’t.
Again, I’m not sure where the argument between us is except for the two points I mentioned earlier (i.e., whether Jamie is helpful, and whether a school Supt/Board has any real power and responsibility to solve problems).
On the second point, I find you strangely defensive of the bureaucracy given your earlier claim to be on a few most-hated lists. I blame people in charge for inaction, and that includes myself. I expect my schools and students to blame me for inaction (and believe me, they do).
I hope that your astute assessment of LA’s Promise (my nonprofit), how we operate, what we raise in additional resources, etc, isn’t also a betrayal of your belief that a few extra dollars is the difference between success and failure at solving these problems. What LA’s Promise raises amounts to an additional $450 bucks a kid (ADA is about $8,000 to $9,000). But SIG and QEIA funds provide substantially more for schools than what I can raise. In fact, West Adams – all in – makes significantly less than other LAUSD schools (over $1k less per child), even with LA’s Promise, because it is a newer campus, hasn’t been in PI status as long as other schools, and therefore isn’t eligible for SIG and other millions aimed at fixing failing schools.
You confuse me with your shot at big business, identifying it in the earlier post as a primary culprit (“the major players who control the system”), then your awkward defense of Pepsi contracts as important revenue generators in the above post. (BTW, We all know Snapple isn’t a great substitute for soft drinks.)
Thank you for the comparison to Harlem Childrens’ Zone. Yes, we aspire to do for children what that organization has been able to do in New York.
Dana Woldow says
Re “Pepsi contracts”, I have never advocated for Snapple and our schools are allowed to sell only 100% fruit juice, water and milk (not the “juice blends” or sweetened teas that make up the majority of the Snapple portfolio.) This was a compromise which we had to offer our middle and high schools while prohibiting them from selling the far more lucrative sodas, juice blends, and even sports drinks, which are in fact allowed under California law but not SFUSD Wellness Policy. We knew our Wellness Policy would limit the amount of money schools would be able to continue to raise through their beverage vending contracts and were not in a position to go for a full ban on the sale of beverages.
Re SIG and QEIA (and I apologize the TLT readers for this digression into edugeek speak), those both come with conditions for how the money can be spent; it can’t be used for cafeteria expenses. Schools get that money to improve theid kids’ test scores and it has to be spent on academics. What’s more, not every school serving low income at risk kids get this money; it is for the most persistently underachieving schools, basically the bottom tier.
But all of our schools have low income, at risk kids, and with the state of California reducing student funding year after year, all of our schools suffer from budget shortfalls. Our district just laid off hundreds of teachers. There is not enough money to keep schools open the traditional 180 days, nor to continue with class size reduction. Schools have no budget for supplies; needed infrastructure repairs are postponed from year to year until they reach crisis proportions. Teachers have no pencils for their students, nor paper and sometimes not enough textbooks, despite the Williams Act.
In this climate, simply advising schools that they should dump vending contracts (which exclude sugar sweetened drinks) is unnecessarily harsh and would impose yet another unjustified financial burden on our already cash-poor schools.
I am quite familiar with Orfalea (in Santa Barbara, CA. for anyone still reading this) and their training, but once those employees are trained, they qualify for higher pay to scratch cook (at least in districts which employ union workers, as ours does) – as well they should, since doing real cooking requires a much higher level of skill and commitment than open cans and reheating frozen food, as well as a longer work day. It is the ongoing high cost for labor and benefits that drives the cost of scratch cooking higher than reheating, even if some savings can be achieved through using raw ingredients rather than processed precooked food.
If every school district all accross America had an Orfalea Foundation to pay for the higher costs of their healthier food, then all would be well. For me, the problem with pointing out the occasional success where a local foundation or organization has stepped in to support better food, is that not every community has such a benefactor. Some parts of the country are in such dire straitrs that there is no one to step in and help, and the communities are so poor that they can’t succeed with the kind of fundraising that, for example, Ann Cooper has done in Boulder to help support the cost of her switch to scratch cooking there.
It is like the problem we see right in our own district, when schools increasingly have to rely on their PTA to fundraise to pay for pencils and paper. Some schools have a base of middle class parents and can raise six figures a year, but others have mostly low income parents and consider their fundraising a success f they bring in $200 a year. It is not productive when those who have already “gotten theirs” (in the sense of finding a benefactor or community support $$$) advise that everyone else should just “get theirs” too. In too many communities, there is nothing to be gotten.
This is why I keep coming back to the federal government. The school meals program is a government mandate, and it should be adequately funded by the government, in a way that makes fresh healthy scratch cooked food a possibility for every school district without having to fall back on finding a local angel or passing the hat among the school parents. There always seems to be enough money in Washington to pay for more pointless wars, or to provide subsidies to wealthy agribusiness interests growing corn. We need to start demanding that our elected officials redirect some of that money to child nutrition, or things will never change.
Melissa House says
Very good POINT! Thank you for sharing.
Mike McGalliard says
Readers who are following this thread, please forgive my disjointed responses. I think I’m hitting reply in the wrong place.
Dana, I can’t tell what your position is on the matter when I read your posts. You are more or less accurate in the facts you state, and you are very good at pointing out limitations, regulations and complexities, but I am afraid you don’t come across very creative in helping find solutions for schools to play a role now in fighting childhood obesity and poor health.
The last line of your last post makes it clear that you think the only way to change is through legislation. (“We need to start demanding that our elected officials redirect some of that money to child nutrition, or things will never change.”). You may call that “realistic,” but I call it defeatist. That’s what I meant in my earlier critique when I said you are delegating the solution back up to the powers that be.
Whether clad in v-necks or ties, we need scrappers and problem solvers, and our children need advocates who understand the urgency of the problem.
Dana Woldow says
My apologies if this posts twice; I composed a reply, hit “submit”, and then it vanished, so I am trying again.
Au contraire, Mike, I have built an entire free website devoted to helping those who want to start right now making changes to school food at the local level. I understand that changing the government system, which results in so many schools having to offer their students precooked reheated processed meals, will take years and enormous effort, but that is no reason to run from the challenge, or to label as “defeatist” anyone who lays the blame for the dire state of school meals squarely where it belongs.
For those who want to jump in now and start working in their own district, please visit my site at http://www.peachsf.org and you can find links on the home page there to follow us on Twitter and Facebook too. There is step by step practical advice for working with your student nutrition director, becoming an advocate, and figuring out where to start with menu reform; there is also an extensive list of non food fundraising ideas schools can use to help replace the income lost when they crack down on the sale of competitive food which draws money away from school meal programs. There is even a guide to helping your school district’s meal program save money that can then be redirected into better quality food. Consultants charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for this kind of advice but I am happy to share what I have learned about this subject for free. Happy reading!
And Mike – lovely chatting with you this week. I don’t want to take up any more of your time, so please enjoy the weekend. If you ever want to chat with me directly, I am at nestwife at owlbaby dot com.
anna says
Btw, Dana- I completely agree with you on your hash points…ALL of them are so great and such good info- SO MANY don’t understand that the hands in the pot and the mile long tentacles go so much deeper than people can see. BUT, in spite of that, Jamie is an amazing asset to the cause. And possibly, the fact that he is from the UK has left him uneducated about our twisted bureaucracy. Who knows? But in any case, he puts his head down and plows his way through. At this point, things are so messy, it seems to be working.
Dana Woldow says
Anna, just FYI (and not to bore other TLT readers who have heard me say this before) but in my school district we have made great progress with our school food. We were among the first in the nation to get soda completely off school campuses in 2003-04; we also got the chips and other junk (including so-called “better for you” baked chips) out of school vending machines in 2003, and stopped selling any kind of junk in the cafeterias that year too.
Our breakfasts offer only cereals with 6 g sugar or less; fruit instead of juice with breakfast too. We don’t do a la carte lunch because that just stigmatizes the poorer students who can’t afford the a la carte selections; instead we offer many choices to our middle and high school kids, all full meals and all available to anyone. We have salad bars in all our middle and high schools; we use all whole grains (brown rice, ww pasta and breads, ww pizza crust); fresh fruit is the dessert each day, not cakes or other sweets. Our chicken nuggets are whole pieces of breast meat, not the chopped and formed, scraped off the bone stuff you get at a fast food joint. Potatoes are rarely seen and french fries have been gone for years; in fact our menu reached the gold standard under the USDA’s Healthy Schools challenge.
All of this has happened as a result of the advocacy of the district’s nutrition committee which I have chaired since 2003. So, in answer to your question about how my efforts have worked out? Pretty well, I would say. We still have a ways to go, but when I think about where we were when I first got involved back in 2002 – when cafeterias were openly selling soda in the cafeterias (in complete violation of USDA school meal regs) as well as every kind of horrible junk food you would never want your kids to eat – chips, snack cakes, hot wings, french fries, “juice” with just 10% actual juice and the rest HFCS and water, and when the daily lunch was likely to be a corn dog, french fries, and chocolate cake – the progress is staggering.
BUT – with many of our schools here in SF not having a kitchen at all, and those that do so poorly equipped that scratch cooked food is out of the question absent millions of dollars in renovations (and where is that money to come from??) – we cannot achieve the level of improvement we would like for our kids without major changes to the whole federal school meal program.
We get the same money per free lunch from the federal government as a school in, for example, Kentuckey, but the cost of living in SF is vastly higher than in Kentuckey, and that drives up our costs for providing that lunch – everything from food and fuel to labor and utilities.
There used to be a federal fund devoted strictly to replacement of equipment in school kitchens, but that dried up in the 1980s. Now, apart from the occasional grant, the government offers no ongoing funding for school kitchen repair and maintenance.
Thanks in part to most agriculture subsidies going to crops like corn and soy, instead of to the fresh fruits and veggies we all want to see our kids eat more of, these healthier fresh foods continue to be more expensive than the canned commodities that the government does make available to schools. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
You are entitled to your opinion of Jamie Oliver ; mine differs from yours. Please don’t tell me what I should or should not complain about, or should or should not be happy about. I have very good reason, based on my 9 years of experience, for feeling the way I do. perhaps when you have been as deeply immersed in this work as I have been, for as long as I have been, you will feel as do.
Krystal says
I’m a little scared to wade into this intellectually fascinating but intimidating conversation, but I just wanted to add something to the greater discussion. I live in Texas, don’t even have kids, and somehow stumbled on this post in a causal google search on my phone while watching the show. Dana, I just wanted to comment that I felt that most of the points you so eloquently stated in your first post about the root causes of the nation’s poor school lunch program were actually discussed in last season’s Food Revolution. I remember Jamie going to one of the massive warehouses with the ridiculous amounts of processed food and the discussions about national standards and the difficulty of meeting them with limited funds. As a lay viewer with very little knowledge of this issue beyond that my own personal school lunches sucked, the message that public schools were struggling under the burden of federal mandates came through loud and clear to me. As it seems like one of your main frustrations with the show is that it focuses heavily on the district and the individual schools, I just wanted to share in hopes it eases your mind a little to know that a similar message to what you described actually came through to the casual viewer. I think the point is that he has to get access into the schools and kitchens before he can really start talking about why it is the way it is. Jamie can be overbearing and obnoxious at times, but I think his effort to shine light on this issue is really important and I wish more people watched. I admire people like you and Mike who are fighting the good fight to try to ensure the health of our nation’s children. Mike, if you are still checking in, I think you are awesome, v-neck shirts or whatever you are wearing. It was the break in your voice when you talked about that if it wasn’t this, it was something else. I’ve heard the same sentiment from sister who is a teacher more times than I can count and the teachers I worked with in my career as a museum educator. Keep fighting for your kids, climbing the uphill battles and know there are people across the nation now who sympathize and admire what you are doing. One last side note for you Bettina, when watching the show, I made no connection between the emotional social studies class and the pulling of permits. It just seemed like bad timing to me. Just my take. Thanks for the thought-provoking conversation on a tired Friday night and keep on keepin’on as the saying goes.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Krystal: Don’t be scared! Welcome to TLT! 🙂
I’m really glad to get your perspective as a “regular viewer.” There’s no question that some of us who think about these issues all the time can find ourselves “in the weeds” and may be perceiving issues that aren’t coming through to the general viewing audience. And I agree about Mike – his concern for the kids at West Adams is palpable and admirable. Of course I now feel like a superficial yutz for attacking his V-neck, but I suppose in the end it was a good thing since it got this conversation going here — one which I, too, have found fascinating.
Now that you’ve found The Lunch Tray, I hope you’ll become part of our community and comment often.
Betsy (Eco-novice) says
I love the behind-the-scenes look! I caught a few minutes of the latest episode last night. I haven’t followed things closely enough to have a real opinion, but given that we all know reality TV isn’t exactly “real,” I guess I’m not super concerned about how “fair” J.O. is exactly. Hopefully folks will get riled up enough to learn for themselves what is going on, and my hope is that that will lead to real change.
Nick says
I don’t get this… From what I’ve read of these comments, it seems that Dana and Mike are arguing amonst themselves about the same goal. Both make excellent points and logically back up their arguments. From my point of view, it seems like the main difference between Mike and Dana is the matter of where to begin the changes. Mike from local to The Man. Dana from The Man to local.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with Dana’s assessment that the bigwigs need to get their act together and I whole-heartedly commend her for her long service, but I must admit, that Mike’s take seems the more logical in the scope of the entire community (not just the schools) which is, from my understanding, the actual aim of Jamie’s show- to affect the whole community, not just the schools.
Krystal makes a good point when she points out that the first season touched on the problems with the bureaucracy of the entire situation.
I’d like to go a step further and also point out that the first season also showed the flaw with Dana’s approach. Well, I should say with Dana’s approach alone. If I remember correctly, when Jamie first entered the elementary school, the kids completely ignored what he served. In fact, when he was given full reign of the kitchen, the children started bringing packed lunches with unhealthy food. It wasn’t until Jamie actual got them to try it that things began to change (at least according to the show). What’s the saying? You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink? I think that sums up the mentality behind Jamie’s movement. You have to get the horse to want the water.
In some respects, you can see how he’s using the tactics of Big Agro against them. For example, the whole flavored milk issue. The study shown (at least partly, in episode 2 of the second season… Or was it episode 1) depicts the decrease in milk consumption because the milk isn’t flavored. With Big Agro it’s adding flavor to milk, for Jamie, it’s making a damn fine meal with fresh, healthy ingredients (I beg pardon if ‘damn’ is too ‘colorful’).
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Dana’s approach isn’t just as needed… it is. But so is Jamie’s. Yes, he may come off, at times, as uncouth and it may seem a bit unfair that he seems to bite into the middle and lower echelons of the education system, but you have to realize that’s the way he got it done in England. I can’t remember exactly if it was in this article or another similar with Jamie as the main topic, but there was mention of how he should have studied up more on the bureaucracy behind our current mess. Has anyone who said this actually looked into comparisons between how England’s was before Jamie changed it and how ours is currently? If it’s a bureaucratic jungle that we have, I would think that the jungle he had to navigate in England would be a tad bit rougher to navigate for the simple fact that they have a number above our current two political parties. Who knows, though. It may be a simpler lacdscape since two varients is comparible to black and white and multiple varients offers a gradiant between those two.
How I see it is this… Jamie’s direction is just as needed as Dana’s. It’s like a Pincer strategy. Move against both sides and watch the establishment crumble even faster. I’m not condoning his portrayal of people, but sometimes a Machiavellian approach helps to create an opening for the bureaucrats. And any opening, no matter how temporary or small, is always a push in the right direction. To refer back to the proverb I mentioned. Dana’s work is akin to leading the horse to water, Jamie’s work is tempting (not making) the horse to drink.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
NIck: I really like your analysis of this exchange. I, too, felt that both Dana and Mike were making excellent points and that we all could learn a lot from both of them. And with a problem as huge and multi-faceted as school food reform, there’s obviously room for lots of voices and strategies. Thanks for this great comment and for coming by TLT.
Kim says
The comments here, save for Dana’s, remind me how little most Americans know about, understand, and/or acknowledge (1) how we got into this school food mess in the first place and (2) how our government’s food and farm policies dictate what is fed to school kids. Farm policies that were set under the Nixon administration in the early 70’s by then USDA head Earl Butz in response to skyrocketing grain prices are still followed today. Those policies literally have not changed (or have changed precious little) in nearly 40 years. WTF?
We’re operating under an antiquated farm policy that still benefits Big Ag today and results in the dumping of cheap, unhealthy USDA commodities and precooked processed food on U.S. school food programs. That policy was designed specifically and intentionally to benefit Big Ag. And it is overwhelmingly successful in doing exactly that.
Companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Archer Daniels Midland, Nestle, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Tyson, and Perdue (to name just a few) provide massive political funding in this country. That’s why we rarely, if ever, see meaningful efforts by politicians to reform food/ag policy. No one in Congress wants to lead the fight or even jump on the bandwagon for that matter. Just try to get elected to the U.S. Senate, especially, without funding from Big Ag.
In reality, a permanent and lasting solution to our school food woes requires food/farm policy reform in this country in addition to the bottom-up efforts of folks like Dana Woldow, Mike McGalliard, Bettina Elias Siegal, Mrs. Q of Fed Up With Lunch, and Jamie Oliver. Props to each and every one of you for doing what you do. Indeed, school food reform cannot happen without it.
It’s eerily odd to me, however, that JO fails to address problems with school lunch that are created by U.S. food/farm policy at all in his show, choosing instead to blame the so-called “bad guys” like LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines. I can only surmise that’s for one of two reasons. He either doesn’t understand the history and impact of U.S. food/ag policy on our school food, or his producers have nixed any mention of that because, let’s face it, there are advertising dollars from Big Ag at least partially at stake.
By the way, GO DANA!!!! You rock!
Mike, I gasped when I read “….42% of our 15 year old girls are obese….” Blessings on you for your compassion and for the fire in your belly on their behalf.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Kim: All I can say to this comment is AMEN. You’re exactly right. And I like that you appreciate the efforts of everyone from Jamie and Mike on one end of the spectrum to Dana on the other. Even if we’re coming from different places on how to fix this problem, I do feel that everyone has a contribution to make.
Melissa House says
You are exactly right on every issue Kim. That has been my beef all along in this huge problem we have in our system. We sure need someone to take on the big guys in our system, I wish JO would ruffle their feathers and point some blame all around Washington. I wish we had term limits and no one taking money from lobbyist. Things would change.
I have said this before and will say again, if we had spend as much money on education as we have for war, sending the man to the moon, and healthcare in America, think of where we would be right now? Definitely not here blogging about it, would we?
Mike McGalliard says
Kim – can you imagine what a show would be like watching JO knocking on legislature doors. Food Revolution Washington DC would undoubtedly do worse in ratings than Food Rev LAUSD. He would certainly be shut out. But don’t take the absence of Food Rev DC as an indication that Jamie doesn’t get the problem. I think he does quite well. But he (and I) think the problem can and should be tackled at multiple levels – in congress for sure, with local bureaucrats who are not nearly as powerless/innocent as some of the bloggers here insinuate, and with the hearts and minds of the children who ultimately need to advocate for themselves and make the right choices when it comes to food.
Melissa House says
Mr. Galliard, JO did in fact get the government involved while changing the lunch program in Britain. Yes, his campaign at the local level in necessary, as is pointing out a government system that is flawed. JO can huff and puff all through a school district, with that being said, he must also show the viewers how you get the government involved as he has done. He did not fix Britain’s lunch food without the Britain government getting involved to make it change and supplying the tools (laws & $) in doing so.
http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/prm/ocr_50114_prm_ogq_unit_b902_rb.pdf
Melissa House says
I would watch a show where JO pointed out all the problems with our food system such as in the movies “Food Inc”, “Fresh, Dirt”, YouTube Dr. Lustig Sugar: the Bitter Truth, HFCS in milk (its not sugar,), foods we buy all have HFCS unless fresh, 1 in 4 children drink a fizzy pop every day (HFCS), GMO foods, books like “Food Politics”, “Appetite for Profit”, “Omnivores Dilemma”, “Harvest for Hope”, “Free for All”, and Corporate greed, government lack of. I think people are not informed, and it takes people like JO to stir things up everywhere:) Yes, then” JO food Rev takes on America” would be an eye opener to everyone:)
Melissa House says
BTW, I may be wrong, you mentioned prior, that your wife will not keep this taping (recorded show) in your family library. Why is that may we ask, curious minds like mine want to know?:)
kristy says
As far as I can tell, Dana and JO (and Mike) are all fighting the good fight, but it seems plain that Dana simply does not like the way JO is going about it. I cannot help but get a sense that Dana believes JO should be addressing the problem HER way.
Fighting this problem top-down, starting with the legislature (local and national) is NOT working — not alone, anyway. No one is saying the way the US gov’t legislates school food isn’t a giant, awful, needs-to-be-addressed problem. But I 100% believe Jamie is doing that. He’s just taking a bottom-up approach.
Jamie’s efforts don’t (won’t) solve everything. Who thinks it will? It’s doing what it needs to be doing: raising awareness, in part by picking fights that can be won. WHY be annoyed with HIM? Why spend time and energy pointing out what a tremendous food-reform advocate isn’t doing well enough? Shouldn’t we be grateful we’ve got such a well intentioned, vocal and effective advocate in this fight?
On a very personal level, here’s the reality: I am a parent of young children who will eventually attend school in CA. I had no idea of the sad state of our school lunch program until Jamie. I’ve never received an email or Tweet or petition from Dana, but I have from Jamie.
And, perhaps more importantly? I’d never visited Dana’s website (or The Lunch Tray!) nor had I heard of all the great work that she’s doing UNTIL I watched Jamie’s show.
It’s because I watch JO that I got curious, and found myself here. It took BOTH people to get me involved and to give me the tools I need to be an advocate in my community.
THAT is the good that Jamie is doing on a mass scale.
Roshi Memar says
Ms. Woldow, excusing the mediocres, like Ramon Cortines, by saying it is “completely beyond their control” is so lame and this mentality is part of the problem. Yes, there are those who create a problem, but these problems would not persist and get as ad if it was not for people like Mr. Cortines who blindly march to orders and go as far as defending the wrong.
Mr. Cortines could have taken advanatge of the opportunity and let what is wrong get exposed rather than act on behalf of the wrong, which you want to fight. Any action that opposes any part of a solution is in itself a problem and need to be confronted. Mr. Cortines brought upon himself the doom which I belived was just.