Icing American Apparel from Patrick Burke on Vimeo.

Updates from stories in progress.

Interview with a desperate family. Reporting by Patrick Burke part of the American Apparel story.

These sisters both worked in American Apparel’s sewing department before the I-9 audit.  Now they’re looking for work and hoping for a way to avoid catastrophe for their family.  I conducted this interview, with translation help from Natalia Garcia, on 11/18/09.  Today, the 19th, I’m told that American Apparel CEO Dov Charney will be helping the Perez family, at least with this month’s rent.

A Desperate Family from Patrick Burke on Vimeo.

More than just a number: Theresa Rutheford – Part of the SF Public Press’ look into “SF city downsizing slashing worker’s paychecks.”

Supes will vote whether to restore funding for pink slipped workers next Tuesday.  Theresa Rutheford, a CNA at Laguna Honda, talked about how the cuts would effect her.UpdateFinal by monica.jensen

Inside the Alameda Courts: Day two. Part of the Crime Courts and Communities investigation with KALW. (Also see Day One).

Stanford law professor Robert Weisberg added another perspective on jury selection. He said that an experienced lawyer who tries the same types of cases will over time, start to come up with profiles of ideal jurors. Prosecutors, who are particularly prone to specialize, are great at this, he said. Weisberg added that in high-stakes, well-funded cases like lawsuits against big businesses, a defense attorney might even hire a jury consultant to research demographics. But ultimately, “lawyers know that there are a certain number of people that they won’t be able to get out of a jury,” he said. “That’s when they start using their questioning not to expose a bias in the juror, but to start to seduce the jurors into their way of thinking.”

New Jails, No Treatment, in California Prison Plan

With his first proposal rejected by a federal court, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week submitted a new, 130-page plan to cut California prisons’ inmate population by 42,000 in two years.

The proposal (PDF) would build new prisons and transfer inmates out of state, but comes amid a hefty budgetary slash to drug treatment programs that lawmakers had previously identified as an effective way of in keeping people out of prison.

Published: Parent and community groups fight uphill battle to reform public school food.

Tavon Frazier is a skinny 9-year-old squirming in front of his Styrofoam lunch tray. He’s eaten most of his chicken taco and his friends, all wearing the navy polo shirts of East Oakland’s Korematsu Discovery Academy, are wiggling around him, chewing on their flour tortillas and nibbling on baby carrots. Tavon didn’t stop at the salad bar on his way to the cafeteria table today. He says sometimes he’ll get applesauce when they have it, but mostly he doesn’t like vegetables, especially broccoli and carrots. His ideal cafeteria meal would be “donuts and cupcakes and a cake,” he says with a mischievous sideways grin.

While Spot.Us is gaining more media attention every day for it’s innovative approach to journalism, I haven’t heard much from the people most involved in these community-funded stories—the reporters. What has their experience been like working with Spot.Us? What are their thoughts on the prospects and challenges of this new model for journalism?

As an intern and reporter for Spot.Us, I recently addressed these questions in a blog post I wrote for Meridian Collective, a cooperative for emerging journalists. Below is my commentary about the Spot.Us experience for me. What has it been like for you?

__________________________

…First, I want to make one very important disclaimer:  I’m a young reporter with little experience in the “traditional journalism” field. As such, I don’t have much to compare Spot.Us with. I also have a unique set of interests (i.e. getting my piece published in print because for some reason that still seems to matter in the job world) which a more established journalist may not worry about. I think the Spot.Us experience is different for each reporter, but here are the things I discovered along the way:

Transparency

Spot.Us was built out of founder David Cohn’s desire to pitch stories to the world and get the public more involved in journalism, rather than have the whole process occur behind closed doors between a reporter and editor. With this goal comes transparency, where every thing from pitching, to fundraising, to investigative research happens in public domain. Cohn often echoes the sentiment of author David Weinberger when he says “transparency is the new objectivity,” helping news organizations gain trust and credibility in the “age of links.”

Transparency also leads to another one of Cohn’s motos: “journalism is a process, not a product.” While media outlets have traditionally tried to cram all relevant information into one finished piece, web technology like comments and blogging  allow for continuous reporting that exposes facts and perspectives as they come to light, creating a more complete picture of a story than say one article with a limited word count can produce.

Collaboration

Another strength of the Spot.Us model is the potential for collaboration. Spot.Us strives to be a platform to connect reporters, news organizations and the public in a symbiotic relationship, where the community can help source information and fund stories they care about, the reporter can sift through facts and break down complex issues, and the news organization can score a quality investigative article with the help of public funds. While I didn’t witness a whole lot of collaboration with my story in particular, all one needs to do is look at the long list of donors and read the comment stream on the investigation into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to see Spot.Us’ potential to galvanize the public around an issue of interest.

Personal Benefits for a Young Reporter

Some of you may be thinking that transparency and collaboration are all fine and dandy, but how does Spot.Us help freelancers in today’s tough economy? First, I think it’s easier to get an “in” with Spot.Us than with a traditional media outlet. While Spot.Us still has some editorial control about pitches they pursue, the organization tries not to be exclusive and will take chances on good ideas, even if the reporter is young or their credentials are not entirely in line. Some may argue that this is a weakness, but I think it could be beneficial to employ young, ambitious reporters who are not as socialized into the conventional ways of doing things. Reporters get a foot in the door; Spot.Us gets fresh blood, and through transparency, reporters will be held accountable.

The pay’s not bad either. If you can last the time it takes to fundraise (which can be months), you will be rewarded with competitive freelance rates. It was also nice to not go through the grueling pitching process, which can mean constant rejection for young reporters. Cohn pretty much single-handedly promoted my story and used his connections to get it placed in a paper. I question whether I could have been published if I would have pitched the story on my own…

Room for Improvement

In the spirit of transparency, let me also share a few areas I think could use some improvement.

Outreach

As it stands, fundraising through Spot.Us is usually a pretty slow process only suitable for long-term investigations rather than more “news worthy” issues. There are often many communities and nonprofit organizations interested in the issues at hand, but due to limited staffing, these groups are not always taken advantage of.

News organizations are also hesitant to make partnerships with Spot.Us, possibly out of discomfort with being transparent since they’ve historically been concerned about being “scooped” or beaten to a story by a competing news organization. I think other news outlets see Spot.Us as an unnecessary middle man between the reporter and editor without seeing the added value of transparency and collaboration that Spot.Us can create. I think enhanced community organizing and education about the benefits of community-funded reporting need to take place to achieve higher levels of collaboration.

Staffing/Editorial Oversight

I think one of Spot.Us’ greatest challenges is its nonprofit status and subsequent lack of adequate staffing (due to lack of funding). While I think Cohn, with the help of Kara Andrade and others, has done an incredible job creating the organization from scratch, I think there are some limitations to virtually being a one man show.

In addition to outreach, editorial oversight is another area that should be built up. Fact-checking can be left up to “peer editors” or no one at all if a news organizations does not step in, which could compromise the accuracy of a story and the credibility of the organization.

Organizational Structure

Lastly, I think more emphasis needs to be placed on creating a more streamlined organizational structure through a defined business-development plan. It seems like stories are often tackled on a case-by-case basis in terms of fundraising, promotion, publication, and distribution rather than undergoing a consistent process from pitch to publication. I was initially wary about Spot.Us’ recent expansion to Los Angeles without all the organization ducks in a row; however, I think working with the USC Annenberg School of Journalism will be a great opportunity to bring more staff and student volunteers into the fold and hopefully help Spot.Us create a more sustainable structure that any city can replicate in the future.

________________________

These are my thoughts, but I’d be interested in hearing from the rest of you Spot.Us reporters out there. Leave us a comment about your experience with community-funded reporting or write a post yourself and email me at serena (at) spot.us.

One challenge that I often face during the reporting process is uncovering more information than I know what to do with. That was definitely the case with my recent sustainable school: what’s for lunch? story. While blogging has helped share my discoveries along the way, I still have a lot of data floating around that hasn’t seen the light of day.

Since the Revolution Foods contract at Santa Cruz City Schools has garnered the most attention and sparked a few questions from the community, I wanted to publish the full interview I conducted with Founder and CEO of Revolution Foods Kristin Richmond on August 6, 2009. Get an inside look at the company that hopes to take the Bay Area — and the rest of the country — by a storm with its healthy alternatives to processed school meals.

Kristin Richmond – CEO of Revolution Foods by SpotUs

Kristin Richmond (Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business)

August 9, 2009

Serena: Could you provide a brief overview of the daily routine at Revolution Foods in terms of how the food is prepared, packaged and shipped to local schools?

Kristin: Our kitchen opens at 3am and we’re working throughout the day. It’s a combination of prepping fresh and then heating the meals in the morning, and any time between 6 am and 11 am, trucks are going out the door to serve meals fresh in schools. And we’ve got a couple different formats depending on whether schools are right at our back door of whether they’re a little further away. One format is to deliver food fresh and hot to schools that are very close by. For schools a little further away, we do a cook, chill platform where we cook every thing fresh then chill it, not freeze it, but chill it then send it out to school sites who then heat it up on site. That’s a really high-quality platform. We have a really great partnership with Whole Foods and that’s similar to the platform they use for their prepared foods department. We offer family style, which is a bulk platform where you’d get a large serving that you would serve to students at the site, and we also offer individually packaged meals. But the trick with our individual packed meals that we’re really proud of is using all sustainable packaging so it’s all 100 percent compostable. We just want to make sure that if schools are opting for individually packaged food that we’re using a green, sustainable solution. We serve a really broad range of schools; we serve districts; we serve charter schools; we serve head start programs, and it totally depends on the format. The younger students often do family style while the older students like more grab-and-go individual service, but it depends on the structure of the school. If the school has a lot of food service workers who are able to scoop and serve the food, then family style is a lot more realistic than if they’re very thinly staffed.

You could have a meal prepped at 4 pm, chilled and then warmed up in the morning. You could have meals that are prepared at 3 am and sent out at 5 am. It really depends on the exact menu, but certainly there are several stages of prepping. There’s the actual grating the cheese and chopping the potatoes. That’s often happening the day before just because we have a lot of prep to do. We’re chopping herbs; we’re getting vinaigrettes ready. We make a homemade pico de gallo for our healthy grande burrito and that can be chopped and prepared the day before. So it kind of depends on the menu and the size of the operation.

Serena: What happens if there’s an accident on the freeway en route to a school district?

Kristin: We give ourselves plenty of time and it’s amazing to say that in four years we’ve never had major complications on that front. Obviously, we haven’t had any natural disasters in the past four years, knock on wood, but we give ourselves a lot of time. We have very experienced drivers. We’ve been doing this for a while. We look at our route planning very carefully. We don’t overload our trucks and our drivers to the point where they can’t get to where they need to go. Of course if there’s an accident or something, we might inform our schools and say ‘hey, we may be a couple of minutes late.’ But we deliver early enough so that we’re not infringing on lunchtime. We might be a little late for our delivery, but it’s not going to stop kids from eating. Districts have been really smooth since the day we started. We invest a lot of time and training into that.

Serena: I’ve talked to several food service directors who are trying to incorporate stricter health standards into their meal programs, but they face some major challenges. I’m wondering if you’ve run into similar issues upholding your requirements to serve rbST and hormone free milk, hormone and antibiotic free meat, no high fructose corn syrup and scratch-cooked food that is local and organic whenever possible. What are the main challenges? What advantages does Revolution Foods have over most local school districts in meeting these criteria?

Kristin: We always face challenges; I’ll be totally honest about that. It’s not easy. One of the biggest pieces that’s challenging for Revolution Foods is that we set out to serve all students. What I mean by that is a very broad economic spectrum and broad demographics. Santa Cruz is case in point. Their population is just around 40 to 50 percent free and reduced lunch. These districts and schools operate on incredibly tight budgets and we have to make our foods as affordable as possible while meeting our health standards, which we’re very proud of and committed to. I know for instance that we’ve used a ton of local produce in the last 30 days. We’ve used plums, pluots, white peaches all from the Growers Collaborative, but we’re also in the middle of summer. In the spring, fall and summer, it’s much easier to access local, organic fruit and produce than it is in January. You really have to have great partnerships like we do with the Grower’s Collaborative. We’ve had a partnership with them from day one and they know that when they have a product at a certain price we will buy it. So it’s about letting your suppliers know that when they have seasonal organic produce that can be at an affordable rate, you are there ready to buy as many units of white nectarines as possible. So I think the secret is really establishing those great partnerships and letting your suppliers know that they can take a risk to get more product in house because there’s a market for it. Revolution Foods is a bigger operation now — not big compared to a big school district but compared to a small school district — so we do have some economies of purchasing there that certainly help us out. As you grow, you’re able to access higher quality goods at lower prices typically. We have a track record of building these partnerships. We’ve always had this partnership with Whole Foods, which introduced us to local suppliers. A perfect example is Joan Diestel at Diestel Turkey Ranch, where we’ve been buying local turkeys. She knows the names of her turkeys. That’s how personally it’s grown. So suppliers that are willing to take a risk and say, ‘hey, I support this cause of getting healthy meals out to all our kids and really increasing the quality of school [food].’ And we try to reciprocate and say, ‘hey, we’re getting bigger and bigger and now this business is going to be better for you.’ So I would say we face a lot of the same challenges. We’ve also gotten good at what we do in terms of building those relationships and really telling the story of what we’re doing and why it’s so important.

Serena: Would you say that you also have more money to spend than most school districts?

Kristin: We face a lot of the same challenges. We face the same reimbursement rate caps. The fact that we’re trying to provide this incredibly high quality meal for a very low rate [is a challenge in itself]. Federal reimbursement rates just went up to 2.68 but CPI adjustment for California is like $2. So think about putting together an incredibly healthy meal, with the cost of labor, food and every thing, and that’s going to pose serious challenges for any one trying to do it. So we’re a slightly different entity but all in all, we run such a cost-conscious operation where we’re trying to put as much as we can into our food for our kids and I think we probably face a lot of the same challenges and struggles that traditional operations face.

(more…)

By Bernice Yeung | Crowdfund this with Spot.Us – if you appreciate this reporting, help support it!
Part of the Prisons & Public Health news blog at NewsDesk.org

Fresh from lockup and battling a host of health problems — including chronic illness, addiction and mental illness — a majority of California parolees wind up in a handful of cities like Los Angeles, Oakland and San Diego.

But here’s the rub: Parolees often can’t get the services they need because they’re going back to low-income communities where health services are “severely strained,” according to a recent RAND Corporation study.

The study also says that access to care for minority parolees also tends to be uneven. For example, African Americans living in Los Angeles and Alameda counties had less access to hospitals than Latino or white parolees, while in Kern and San Diego counties, Latino parolees had the least access.

I spoke with Lois Davis, the lead researcher on the RAND study, which mapped where parolees go after they’re released, and analyzed — for the first time — California’s safety net of medical, mental health and addiction services available to parolees in their communities.

Bernice Yeung: Why should we care about the health of parolees?

Lois Davis: A lot of people ask that question–why does this matter?–and they are usually fairly unsympathetic. But California is in the top five states in terms of the sheer number of prisoners and the truth is, they all return to communities.

[T]hey should care because [parolees] become a part of a larger set of public health and social problems that California will have to deal with. They become part of the medically indigent population, those suffering from mental illness, homelessness and those having drug problems.

It has affects on our public safety, since those conditions can be associated with property crimes. This population also brings with them infectious diseases, which can have an impact on the communities that they’re returning to. So policy makers need to make sure that they are getting the service and the medications that they need.

How would you summarize the major findings of this study?

Certain California counties and communities are disproportionately impacted by reentry. They are often returning to disadvantaged communities where the medical and health safety nets are already restrained and where they have limited resources to help those individuals returning from prison. So some communities are disproportionately impacted.

Also, these individual tend to be in poorer health. They have higher rates of chronic health conditions such as asthma and hypertension, higher rates of infectious diseases and conditions that require rigorous use of health care to keep them in check. Two-thirds of California inmates report having drug-abuse or -dependency problems, and one-third report having mental health problems. So they are disproportionately sicker than the average citizen in California.

The key message is that certain counties and communities are disproportionately affected by reentry and if we want to think about how to target resources, we should take that into account.

How is this study unique?

The innovation of this study is not in mapping where parolees return to and the location of healthcare facilities; it’s in trying to define, for the first time, the safety net for these individuals and figuring out what the capacity of that system is in terms of being able to meet the needs of these individuals.

We are beginning to recognize that access to services varies from community to community and it varies in terms of types of service. And this impacts parolees by race and ethnicity–it’s important for people to understand that mental health services for African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles or Alameda County, for example, reside in areas with lower access to these services …

What was surprising to me was that in the mental health area, there is a patchwork of two small networks for parolees. But in truth, they need to rely on country resources [Something we'll explore in future posts--Ed.]. It’s often hard for parolees and their advocates to navigate this patchwork.

We need, fundamentally, for policy makers to ask themselves about what reentry looks like in their community. What capacity do they have to meet the health care needs of people returning from prison? As reentry plans are getting more attention, how do we design strategies to target the resources to these individuals?

What policy recommendations would you make based on your research?

My specific recommendations are that policymakers have to realize that nonprofit community organizations–in Los Angles they’re called public-private partnership clinics–fill an important role in the medical safety net. So if a county is thinking about how to target their resources, they should think about the possibility of funding more of these clinics in places where there are gaps in services for this population.

They also need to look at the patchwork of mental health and drug treatment for parolees because this is an area where parolees have the greatest need, and it will have an impact on whether they reoffend or violate their parole, whether they can find housing or a job. There is a real need to look at how we can better rationalize these services so that people have better access to the resources that they need.

Is California somehow different in terms of reentry and health care?

We have to recognize that we are one of the states with a large number of people coming out of prison, so this is not an issue that we can ignore. The sheer size of the prison population is not trivial in terms of the public health and public safety impacts.

And as the state is trying to find reductions in health care and corrections costs, they are considering cutting out rehabilitative services in prisons. For example, they are thinking of cutting substance-abuse counseling unless it is court ordered, or they are thinking of releasing individuals without parole. So we could have more people coming back out but at the same time, rehabilitative services are potentially being cut while they are incarcerated. And the state is also trying to trim funding to the medical and mental health safety net when they come out. What does this mean for the medically indigent? This population will essentially push the costs to a local level. So there are impacts of reentry on public health.

Why is health not often been discussed in terms of reentry?

We know that this population is sicker on average, but when people think of people that are coming out of prison, they think about how they need housing and a job. And they do. But what some people do not appreciate is the impact that health has on the ability of people to do these things.

This population has a higher burden of disease, whether you’re talking about mental health, drug abuse or chronic illness. And the public-health community has not traditionally seen prisoners, or those returning from prison, as important when they’re dealing with things like infectious diseases. But [it] does have a role to play in meeting these individuals needs; these individuals are part of the population that they need to worry about …

We need to understand this population as part of the homeless and medically indigent population, which often needs alcohol and drug treatment.

As Jeremy Travis, the former director of the National Institute of Justice, said, “They all come back,” and that’s true. This is not an issue that we can ignore. And this impacts certain communities in a profound way. This goes back to the question of why we should care.

By SHALWAH EVANS at Mission Loc@l

Support their reporting on Mission Vacancies here.

Urban Burger offers the Big Kahuna, which comes with grilled pineapples, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, lettuce and teriyaki glaze–all on a mound of cooked beef of course.    It’s just one of the specialty burgers offered on the menu of the Mission District eatery that recently went from soon to be to opened to operating.

The restaurant is one of more than a half dozen empty storefronts that have changed status since April when Mission Loc@l last looked behind the vacancies along the Valencia Street corridor.

Abe, who said he owns Urban Burger, but declined to give his full name said that the restaurant is doing well considering the current economic crisis.  Decorated with graffiti art and quotes like “We Grill You Chill,” and “Nice Buns,” along the walls, the place opened in May and buzzes with a variety of customers.  The owner said that the weekends are even busier than the weekdays.

“It’s been a good start, thinking about the way the economy is right now,” he said.

Other new openings include Xanath, an ice cream store, Mission Bikes and Casa Bonampak–a store that sells clothes, and folk art among other things with Latin American roots. In all, the number of available storefronts has dropped to seven from 13.

Abe from Urban Burger said he’s in the process of getting a beer and wine permit.  His biggest complaint: the nearby vacancies that are eyesores.

Three vacant stories—the Charles Phan promise—are across the street.  Mission Loc@l pursued Phan at Slanted Door for an update on his Mission property, but after promising e-mails from his wife and business partner, Phan never returned phone calls.

Since he left the Mission in 2002, he’s opened up places in SOMA , The Ferry building and another Out the Door in Pacific Heights.  His business partner Lien Ho said that while the Phans still own the property on Valencia Street, it would be a while before they moved forward with any plans.

READ MORE

If you missed the awesome coverage being provided by Chris Roberts at the SF Appeal, here’s this week’s break down. Chris is doing a stellar job of covering the city’s issues in all their glorious variety. You can support the SF Appeal and their reporting here. If we can raise another $100 Chris will do a breakdown of his work for us and give an insider’s view into covering San Francisco city life.

• Failure To Observe 250 Foot Gap Rule May Have Contributed To F Market Crash
• No Elephants at the Zoo Again, Ever
• Subverting Expecations, Pot Commission Confirmations Divisive, Ornery
• Gas-Guzzlin’ City — $25M Annually Spent On Fuel
• The Drew School Expansion To Move Forward, Despite Neigbors’ Protests
• SF’s Bike Plan Hits The BoS, But Don’t Expect A Quick Fix(ie)
• Pay No Attention To The Vacant Lot in HP: Mayor, Chronicle Team Up To Bury Examiner Story (which itself was buried in the Examiner)

An update from Lindsey Hoshaw who is preparing for her trip to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Today’s blog post – learning to scuba dive.

There is so much you don’t expect during your first underwater class, like that your instructor will tell you she’ll turn off your air supply so you can “get the hang of it,” or that mild panic attacks are common and even expected. Luckily I’ve managed to master both of these—not freaking out and taming the voice inside that says, “you’re sinking underwater, get out, abort!”

My first two dive sessions in the Menlo Park community pool have been great. My classmates—two Naval engineers—are good sports when I keep trying to take photos during class and when I ask seemingly ridiculous questions about how to float underwater.

And I’m expecting to see all sorts of wildlife up close during our open water dive in Monterey this weekend. And it’ll be a chance for me to test out my new underwater equipment—camera + plastic housing (hopefully) = a non-leaky underwater camera. Though my instructor said she’d had three leaks in her six years of diving. Apparently underwater camera insurance is a must.

My next pool session is tomorrow when I’ll have to swim 4oo meters and tread water for ten minutes. Before that I’m tested on what I remembered from the reading. Yep, there’s reading. It’s like being back in college except instead of economics equations I’m trying to remember how to stay alive while submerged in the middle of the ocean. Exactly, piece of cake.

With the economic depression setting in and the effects of global warming being seen all over the planet, people are having to find ways to employ themselves as well as create cost effective healthy, earth friendly alternatives to expensive fast food and cheap gmo-products. One organization helping guide residents to a more sustainable way of life is the Village Bottom Farm in West Oakland. How is this new “green consciousness” and the existence of the farm affecting a low-income, crime-ridden neighborhood like West Oakland? Tune in to find out from Block Report Radio’s Minister of Information JR, who’s covering the story.

Follow-up to Case Study: Santa Cruz City Schools and the Fight for Revolution
By Serena Renner

Last night’s school board meeting marked two drastic changes for food service at Santa Cruz City Schools: the entering of a new nutrition services director as well as the hiring of Revolution Foods for meals served at the elementary and middle school level.

The nutrition services director, James “Jamie” Smith, was hired in closed session before the meeting began. Smith comes from a culinary arts background and most recently worked in institutional food service as the head chef at UC Santa Cruz.

Several lunch ladies in the audience murmured at the announcement of the district’s new hire, many of them still upset over the resignation of the former food service director, Denise McGregor, after her job description was changed to include expertise in culinary arts, nutrition and budget management.

Superintendent Gary Bloom halted the commentary just as one woman was about to stand up and speak, saying that the item was not up for discussion having been decided during closed session.

The board also approved a new food service contract with Revolution Foods to provide elementary breakfast and lunch as well as middle school lunch. The Oakland-based company is dedicated to offering scratch-cooked meals and fresh, local produce as opposed to the largely processed food currently served.

The consensus came after Board Member Rachel Dewey-Thorsett introduced an amendment to the proposal requiring the new food service manager to conduct a report by November assessing the cost-effectiveness of the program.

“The challenge is when you have something that isn’t working from the food point of view or the budget point of view,” Dewey-Thorsett said. “We want to improve the food now but also be careful about the budget simultaneously.”

Dewey-Thorsett echoed the sentiment of Board Member Don Maxwell who was hesitant to support a more expensive meal program when teachers are getting laid off and academic programs are financially strained.

The 2009-10 contract with Revolution Foods will cost the district an estimated $740,000 for daily food preparation and delivery, an increase from the current food program although Bloom was unable to give an exact figure because the cost could be offset by factors such as increased participation, which the district is anticipating. However, if the board decides the program is not cost-effective, the contract can be terminated with a 30-days notice, Bloom said.

Wellness Committee Chair Cynthia Hawthorne, who has been pioneering the changes for the past year and a half, was eager to cut through the debate and approve the contract once and for all.

“This isn’t the year to look at numbers,” Hawthorne said. “That was three, four years ago. We’re trying to turn direction…I don’t want to pick this a part with soft numbers.”

Now that the contract has been approved, meal prices will increase from $1.50 to $2 for breakfast and from $2.50 to $3.25 for lunch at elementary schools starting this fall. Middle school lunch will go from $3 to $3.50 while the high school food program will remain unchanged.

The district had originally planned to offer free breakfast through a Universal Breakfast program, but Superintendent Bloom decided it wasn’t affordable at this time.

The opposition to the contract is mostly made up of current food service staff who worry about additional costs as well as reduced hours and layoffs. While Superintendent Bloom said layoffs aren’t planned, he also made no guarantees.

“We can’t provide any definitive on [the impact to staffing] now but the new manager will be making recommendations soon,” Bloom said.

Others like food service employee Gina Navaroli question the logic in hiring a new culinary arts manager and then contracting out school food, especially since most board members agree that the district should eventually return to scratch cooking.

Food service employee Kim Jorgensen said the district tried outsourcing elementary meals in the past with a vendor named Preferred Meals and ended up losing money.

Jackie Henry-Russell’s main gripe with the whole decision-making process is that food service workers have been largely left out of discussions. She thinks the current staff is capable of preparing healthier meals if given the direction and resources to do so.

“We can do it, but we’ve never been given the opportunity,” she said.

Dewey-Thorsett agreed that ideally the district would prepare its own meals, but she admitted that the district doesn’t have the infrastructure to do so at this time.

“There’s an intuitive feeling that we can do this in house and it would be more affordable,” she said. “But the real goal is having kids in school having eaten breakfast and having access to a healthy lunch. This is the first step in doing that. It’s a step by step process.”

Kristin Richmond, founder and CEO of Revolution Foods, was also present at the meeting and spoke up saying the company has a proven track record of high meal consumption and that she is committed to creating a successful program through collaboration with the district.
———————-
Have questions about the Revolution Foods contract? Serena will be interviewing founder and CEO of Revolution Foods, Kristin Richmond, next Thursday 8/6 at 7 a.m. If you have any questions you’d like Serena to ask, comment here or email her at serena [at] spot.us .