Workingmother.com| august/september 2019 57
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Join forces with other
parents.
Chances are, you are not the
only one who’s worried about your
district’s school lunch. And you’ve
heard of strength in numbers, right?
“It’s usually best to band together with
other like-minded parents,” Siegel
says. “When you go it alone, you’re too
easily written off as that mom.” There
might already be a PTA committee
devoted to student wellness or some
other group that you can join. In 2010,
Siegel joined a committee in her
district that was formed to advise the
school-nutrition department on its
menus; she got more involved from
there. Voice your concerns to the other
moms at drop-off , ask your principal or
your nutrition-services department if
there’s an existing group, or check
Facebook. There might already be an
online group dedicated to improving
your district’s cafeteria standards.5
Send out a survey.
Want a quick, easy way to get
a lot of feedback from parents
at once? Do what Patricia Morales did
and pass out surveys at school
meetings. At her kids’ elementary
school on Chicago’s southwest side,
nearly 98 percent of the students are
low income, and 94 percent of the
student body is Latino. To get parents’
voices heard, Patricia worked with
Healthy Schools Campaign and spear-
headed a survey that asked for stu-
dent demographics, as well as compli-
ments, concerns and suggestions
regarding school meals. With more
than 200 returned surveys, “I shared
the information at the school council,
at school meetings and with other
parents.” The feedback Patricia col-
lected informed the new food- service
contract that began this past school
year. Patricia’s district now off ers
fewer processed foods.4
Start a Facebook group if there isn’t
one. Karla Lemmon, of Wayzata, Minnesota, teamed
up with seven other working parents (see tip No. 3), and
in a single year, they built a Facebook group of more than 1,100
moms and dads who also wanted to see changes to the district’s
cafeteria menu. Armed with all the feedback from concerned
parents, Karla and her cohorts secured a meeting with the food-
service director, business manager and superintendent. This
meeting eventually led to having juice removed entirely from
elementary school menus, and now chocolate milk is off ered
only on Fridays (instead of every day, twice a day, as it had been).6
Put in a little bit of face time.
A demanding job and kids with their own hectic
calendars make it seem impossible to carve out time
to volunteer in the fl esh. Marissa Costonis of Philadelphia
started going into her child’s school for a few hours just one
week out of every year. Among other things, she’d walk
around the cafeteria with lots of unique vegetables (such as
jicama, fennel and sunchokes). Students could hold and smell
the foods in a pressure-free environment. She also worked
with school staff to create a special item, such as smoothies,
using the vegetable—and the kids liked it! After the success of
her lunchtime eff orts, Marissa started talking about special
indoor gardens (called tower gardens), and how the school
could use them to demonstrate the connection between what
we grow and what we eat. “As a result of my eff orts, the
school fi led for a grant to purchase two tower gardens so the
students could watch vegetables and herbs grow throughout
the year, and then taste them in their lunches,” she says.