On a recent Tuesday, dozens of elementary school students at Richmond’s Nystrom Elementary flooded into the cafeteria for lunch. Some kids were twirling in circles or dancing, others were munching on apples before they even sat down. They were loud, excited, and ready to eat.
On the menu — meat or vegetarian lasagna paired with garlic focaccia breadsticks made by a local bakery. Cafeteria staff also dish out a Caesar salad topped with homemade dressing and romaine lettuce sourced from small farms in Watsonville.
Barbara Jellison, the executive director of food services for the West Contra Costa Unified School District, serves food she’s proud of with origins she can trace.
Some of the kids ready to eat have lost their baby teeth.
“So it’s hard for them to eat full apples. We give them a variety,” Jellison said. “Our sliced apples [are from] Peterson Farms, they’re also organic.”
On other days, the menu features shredded chicken tomatillos, cheese enchilada pies, vegan nuggets and vegan street tacos.
The menu is a reflection of Jellison’s longstanding mission to change how people think about school meals. Before taking on a job with the district more than two decades ago, Jellison studied at the Culinary Institute of America. She worked at high-end restaurants in New York, like River Cafe and La Caravelle, and co-owned a restaurant in San Francisco with her husband called Restaurant 2001.
She has high standards and knows school meals can have lasting consequences. One study showed that the healthiest meals children eat in a day comes from their school cafeteria. School meals are considered the nation’s second largest food safety net after food stamps, and they can positively impact health, attendance and concentration.
Jellison wants to change how kids view school cafeteria food and the people who make it.
“The biggest challenge has been the stigma: the lunch lady with the cigarette and the big hair net and the big wart on her face, swapping food onto a plate,” Jellison said. “We’ve come a long way.”
From the Culinary Institute to the WCCUSD
Jellison still wears a hair net, but the food WCCUSD schools provide now is a far cry from when she started in 2000. She landed a job with the district after seeing an ad in a local newspaper. But she was surprised by the food and drinks she saw served at a high school. She said it reminded her of a 7-Eleven.
“But a 7-Eleven on steroids almost,” Jellison said. “You know, 36 different sodas. We had both Coca-Cola and Pepsi competing against each other. Hostess was there. Plate-sized cookies. Nachos in huge bags.”
Change came in baby steps, Jellison said. School meal programs must meet federal nutrition standards to qualify for reimbursements. Those standards can shift. The Ronald Reagan administration, for example, drew jeers when its proposed guidelines counted ketchup as a vegetable.
The big shift, Jellison said, came in 2010 after former First Lady Michelle Obama launched a campaign to address rising rates of childhood obesity. The Obama administration set new nutrition standards that required schools to serve more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
The Trump administration attempted to loosen those standards, allowing more fries and pizza, but a federal district judge struck the effort down. Beginning this year, California codified Biden-era nutrition regulations for school meals into law, which aim to reduce sugar and salt.
“”
It’s about food justice. It has dividends for the rest of their day, for the teachers, for their parents, and setting them up for success for the rest of their lives.
— WCCUSD Chef Randal Lane
District chef Randal Lane said the federal regulations today are tough. He must compete with flaming hot Cheetos for kids’ attention while considering sodium and salt content.
“When chefs have a problem, we throw sugar and salt and acid on things. And fat. And I can’t do any of those — with the exception of acid. I can put as much vinegar as I want. But kids are not keen on vinegar,” Lane said.
But Lane is determined to meet the challenge. He has more than two decades of experience working in restaurants and bakeries, but loves working with schools. His kids go to school in the district, and he wanted to improve the quality of their food. He’s an inaugural fellow at the Chef Ann Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting whole-ingredient, scratch cooking in schools.
He said the push to improve school meals is part of a national movement.
“It’s about food justice,” Lane said. “It has dividends for the rest of their day, for the teachers, for their parents, and setting them up for success for the rest of their lives.”
Lasting partnerships with California farmers
The quest to bring organic food to schools got an unexpected boost during the pandemic lockdowns. After schools shut down, the United States Department of Agriculture provided nutrition waivers to schools, allowing them to feed kids for free, regardless of their income.
Jellison saw an opportunity. She reached out to Judi Shils, the executive director and founder of Turning Green and its Conscious Kitchen program, which works with schools to provide organic meals to students.
In nine months from November 2020 to August 2021, the collaboration led to the purchase of 10.7 million pounds of organic food for nearly 19 million meals for kids and families in the district.
Conscious Kitchen helps school districts connect with organic farmers. Marlen Tapia, who operates Mimi’s Organic Farm with her family in Salinas and Watsonville, began delivering organic blackberries to West Contra Unified in 2023, and has now expanded to other school districts.
“We are risking a lot in farming. This isn’t like a candy store. We’re fighting the weather, climate change, a lot of things,” Tapia said. “The benefit of working with schools is you know that every week they’re going to order something. So you’re expecting and you’re excited to see your orders.”
Tapia has a routine. By around 2 a.m. on Monday mornings, she and her dad, her co-pilot, begin the drive to deliver to schools.
“Yes, I’m tired, yes it’s hard. But at the end of the day I’m happy that they’re eating something healthy,” Tapia said. “It pays off to know that children are actually getting food that they deserve.”
Food is prepared at the district’s central kitchen
The food for West Contra Unified schools is prepared at the central kitchen in Richmond. That site is expected to go through an upgrade that will allow for even more scratch cooking.
On a recent morning, staff there were busy making quesadillas for the elementary schools. They use organic tortillas and organic white cheddar cheese.
Kids will soon devour their meals in a hurry before heading back to class. Jellison imagines a lunch period where students don’t need to rush.
She wants kids to relax and enjoy their food, and appreciate the steps it took to bring food from farms to the kitchen to a school cafeteria.
“It’s not only getting the nutrition that you need to be able to sit in class and learn, but the social connection,” Jellison said. “Sit at the table. Enjoy a meal.”
This is just wonderful news; in fact, it’s the most heartwarming, hopeful story I’ve read in a long time. I live near Washington Elementary School in Richmond and see students skipping and happily walking to the lunchroom and now I know why. Unfortunately, sidewalk vendors set up carts to sell their salty/sweet junk food right next to the school. That’s the next story to report! Thank you for your good work.
It can be hard to find healthy food that is pleasing to the ever-evolving kid palate, but try we must if we want our children to develop good eating habits. I still see too many Oreos, chips and candy sent from home in kids’ lunches, so it’s great that WCCUSD is to offering such excellent healthy alternatives and supporting local farms in the process. And I love that anyone can get school lunch, regardless of income!