Chicago high schoolers to demand better food at board meeting - Chicago Trib

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Chicago high schoolers to demand better food at board meeting - Chicago Trib


When school officials defend serving a daily menu of nachos, pizza, burgers and fries, they often say they're just giving students what they want.

But you wouldn't know it by listening to an angry coalition of high school students who plan to speak out on Chicago Public Schools meals Wednesday at the monthly Chicago Board of Education meeting.

One of those students is Teresa Onstott, a sophomore at Social Justice High School who last week practiced a speech that details the "sickening pizza, chicken sandwiches and nachos" the district serves each day and urges the board not to renew the contract for the company providing the food.

That company, Chartwells-Thompson, has provided food service to the district for nearly a decade. This year its contract is up, and during the next month the board will be reviewing bids for the next CPS food service contract, valued at about $58 million a year.

The mild-mannered Onstott is one of about 20 students from various Chicago high schools who plan to protest the district's food at the board meeting and present members with other possible paths as they review the bids.

Onstott became involved with the issue as part of a school colloquium called "What's In Your Stomach" led by social studies teacher Jackson Potter. Students in the colloquium — which they take as part of a Social Justice service requirement — work on local issues through hands-on actions and civic engagement.

Potter chose school nutrition as an issue, and the students decided to address it through planting an organic garden, researching school food and testifying at a board meeting.

Jessica Ortega, a senior at the Little Village school, said she thinks the district should incorporate organic foods, "and if that's not possible, our food should actually be cooked in the cafeterias rather than being brought in by trucks and having the lunch ladies just heat it up."

The lack of working kitchens in the district is an important issue for many school food activists. But CPS says it will not allow any new working kitchens to be built in the district, even in new structures.

Ortega also wants schools to have flexibility to improve their own food. "Otherwise," she said, "they're just holding back the schools who want to serve healthier food. Charter schools already get to do that."

The students also plan to protest the absence of physical education classes for juniors and seniors.

The students' suggestions echo those of many adults studying school food. But kids have a vantage point most adults don't: They get to watch the lunch program in action five days a week. Sophomore Courtney Ceasar said he's concerned about classmates who daily gulp down "pizza, nachos, fries, chocolate milk and blue or green slushies. … We are seeing a lot of health problems in younger people today, and I don't want my nieces and nephews to have to deal with the same problems."

The high schoolers know better meals will cost more, which is why students from the South Side's Julian High School plan to offer cost-saving tips. First on the list: Stop forcing students to take foods they plan to throw away. Students from Hancock on the Southwest Side will speak on the nutritional content of CPS food.

Senn High School students created two presentations, according to their adviser, biology teacher Brian Roa. One encourages the district to serve more organic and nongenetically modified foods. The other examines the food safety record and corporate affiliations of Chartwells-Thompson.

Last week, however, the students learned that Senn officials had rejected their request for a Wednesday field trip without explanation. Roa said the students were very upset and he will deliver their speeches for them.

At Social Justice, part two of the nutrition colloquium involves planting an organic garden. The plot CPS gave them is on the outskirts of the school's playing field, just steps from moving freight trains and in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant. Undaunted, the students plan to use raised beds to grow organic produce that they hope to serve in the cafeteria.

Ortega knows it might be a rough adjustment. Still, she said: "If we could get used to the nasty food, why couldn't we get used to the healthy food too?"