Back to School Angst and a Food Revolution

Okay, I admit it: I have a little of that Back To School Angst everyone on the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum is talking about.  It was about a week ago; a very, very long thread dedicated to feeling kind of sad, kind of like you are missing out on something now that school has started.  At the time, I mostly shook my head because I was happy to not be returning to LAUSD on August 14th and as I heard the local school bell ring from my desk, I was relieved to know my kids wouldn’t be going back to that.  I mean, WHY would you miss something that was so terrible for your kids?

Today all my Seattle and Torrance friends started back to school, 1200 miles apart, but sharing the same experience.  Facebook is filled with darling photos with smiling children and notes of what grade they are beginning, I’ve watched them grow taller over the years.  There would be no “back to school” photo with backpack in our photo albums, no formal class picture, no spring picture to compare to the fall.  We are no longer part of that community.  Today I felt the loss.

Today was also my presentation for the local MOMS Club Chapter about bagged lunches versus school lunches.  My goal was to tell them about my experience with school lunches and to try to inspire them to pack a healthy option for the little ones entering elementary school.



I was brought back to three years ago, where T was dropped off at the local school for his first public school experience.  It took me a couple of months to get situated, to get into a preschool program for PJ and then be able to volunteer in his class.  On my big volunteer day sometime in January, I walked with the kids out to the “cafeteria” to find a service window with a lunch lady handing out plastic wrapped lunches in brown paper baskets.  All the food was brown.  Brown potato “smiles,” brown breaded chicken breast on a whole wheat bun and a brown ice-cream looking thing called “Chocolate Launch! Frozen Whey Protein.”  No fruit, no veggies.  I later discovered that “ketchup” and the potatoes covered that food group.


LAUSD 2011 lunch of "Sweet & Sour"

 Along with this discovery was the milk choice.  Strawberry, Chocolate or plain in a “bladder” bag (not pictured here) the Kindergartners were required to puncture with a straw in order to drink.  The strawberry milk covered the chicken sandwich of T’s classmate, who shrugged helplessly, probably grateful to get that free meal.

I. Was. Mortified.  All the literature from “Café LA” and their website advertised “healthy meals” for our children.  I bought it hook line and sinker.  These meals were positively disgusting and I had trusted that the second largest school district in the country had my back, my kid's best interest in mind.  Grrr.

I packed lunches after that.  I did "bento" style using Laptop Lunches.  I became an expert and an activist.

 

In Spring of last year I was contacted by Jamie Oliver's people about the Food Revolution coming to LA.  I had signed up as an activist on his website after watching the 2010 television series where 1st graders couldn't identify the name for a tomato.  I began to work with the grassroots team to tell LAUSD that this kind of meal is unacceptable.  Flavored milk was unnecessary.  I attended a rally to ban flavored milk, attended the filming of a demonstration of how much sugar the kids in LA drink in a week of flavored milk, met with Jamie and his team, interviewed for magazines and the nightly news, met with the food services director and the deputy-whats-his-name right hand guy to the Superintendent. It amazed me that we could affect change so quickly, but then that's what you get when you have a celebrity backing the effort.  Thanks Jamie!  We got the flavored milk removed.  The menu was changed as planned.  John Deasy promised late night entertainer Jimmy Kimmel he promised to see this through. 

 

The bigger fish to fry is really the USDA who thinks it's okay to call "ketchup" a tomato, but these things are coming clearer every day.

But the point is, it was a fight.  Everything within a school district is a bureaucracy and even a simple thing like getting a healthy square meal for a kid is a freaking fight.  Can you see where these thoughts were headed?
 
And so, my successful talk concluded, I headed home to my boys who were hanging with their favorite sitter.  I was greeted with relaxed smiles and they reported they did some math and played Uno.  Happy Kids. 

I found this magnet on my refrigerator last week.  It's the 1st Grade School Picture for the Fall of 2010.  This is my little T Man and it was very clear that he wasn't happy.

So angst-schmangst.  I know it's all good.  Even if I need to sit here and spill the beans to you to make myself feel justified.  I know you know, and I know you support me.  I'm feeling pretty grateful.  Thanks for that.