What’s for lunch? How about Sweet Potatoes Chicken Quesadilla, a healthy slaw with cumin-lime crema and a Grilled Pineapple Downtown with graham crackers, cinnamon and apple reduction? And it’s all less than 730 calories and costs $1.14! Sounds like an impossible gourmet meal, but that’s the recipe that a team from Santee Education Complex cooked up...

On Friday, 19 students from seven LA Unified schools will participate in a cook-off that will send a team to compete nationally in Washington, D.C. Their task: to create a nutritionally balanced school meal for $1.14, the district’s lunch budget. Their challenge is not unlike one the massive LA Unified Food Services division is facing: how to feed more than...