Pamela Anderson speaks at the school board.

Sometimes staying late at the LA Unified school board meetings has its benefits. Particularly when quirky things happen in only-in-LA moments.

About 8:45 p.m. Tuesday late into the meeting, most of the audience members had cleared out of the school board auditorium and the 200 or so protesters outside were gone. There were almost as many people up on the horseshoe dais as there were watching.

Board President Steve Zimmer kidded about seeming a bit loopy because his cold medicine was kicking in. Then, the school police officers stirred, the board members stopped talking and a blur of diverse people marched down the aisle of the auditorium.

Up front was blonde bombshell Pamela Anderson, looking as stunning as she did in her “Baywatch” days two decades ago. In a tight black top and flowered skirt, she brushed back her characteristic blonde locks and prepared herself to address the school board for the first time.

In the pressroom watching on closed-circuit TV, reporters were surprised and snickering about why she was there. The LA Unified communications team didn’t have any idea.

Along with the actress, there were TV journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell and 9-year-old actress Felix Hemstreet, as well as a triathlete, a cardiologist, a best-selling author, a dietician, a doctor of 40 years and Torre Washington, who bills himself as “a professional vegan bodybuilder.”

The circus of presenters was inspired by 14-year-old Lila Copeland from Paul Revere Middle School who wants to have a regular vegan option on the menu in the nation’s second-largest school district. It appeared she had an impact on the board, and she had already met with Laura Benavidez, of the district’s Food Services division, who seemed open to the idea.

“This school district is at the forefront of offering good nutritious food for the students, so we just want them to be aware of allowing vegan options for the students too and helping us have a healthy future for this planet,” Copeland said. “We want the district to provide a vegan option.”

The experts spewed statistics and anecdotes. They brought up methane caused by cows, the drought, global warming, childhood obesity and ethical reasons for being vegan. They talked about how eating meat can cause heart disease and strokes, they detailed the outmoded federal nutritional standards and brought in packets of vegan meal samples for each of the seven school board members prepared by plant-based protein company Gardein’s chef Jason Stefanko.

Anderson spoke for two minutes about milk and water and the United Nations. She said, “Kids today are appalled to learn that animals killed for cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets live in crowded dark filthy sheds by the thousands and are mutilated and slaughtered by having their throats slit while they’re still conscious.”

Lila met this week with Zimmer and fellow school board member Ref Rodriguez as well as with the food services officials. The district already has a “Meatless Mondays” program and has taken the lead in requiring antibiotic and hormone-free chicken and turkey and is considering inexpensive low-fat options created by student chefs. On the other hand, the most animated part of a school board meeting two weeks ago centered on bringing back chocolate milk.

“I’m impressed with what I’ve been told, but maybe I’m too old to change, maybe I’m not,” said 75-year-old board member George McKenna. “I’ve learned that everything I eat and love is not supposed to be healthy.”

McKenna, who grew up in New Orleans, confessed his love for po’boys and beignets and said he just ate a ham sandwich. “I’m hooked on meat and ice cream.” But, he added, “I’m enlightened, and you make the case for healthy children. At least I’ll think about what I eat. Maybe you’ll change our behaviors, and maybe mine.”

Zimmer quipped to his fellow board member, “We’ll go out for a veggie burger soon.”

It didn’t go unnoticed to the school board that young Lila brought together a virtual Who’s Who of vegan experts, including vegan cardiologist Dr. Kim Williams, Dr. Michael Klaper, Kawani Brown, Dr. Heather Shenkman, Sharon Palmer and others.

Of course, Anderson was a highlight, and although there wasn’t much of an audience, the school board meeting will be rebroadcast on Sunday morning at KLCS Television Channel 58 in between children’s shows such as “Dora the Explorer.” This time around, the show will feature an appearance by Pamela Anderson, and also a rant of a student earlier during Tuesday’s public comments that had a great deal of four-letter words while he described creating his own barber shop. Anderson’s talk is toward the end of the broadcast (at the 5:08:48 mark), which is now available on the LA Unified website.

“I’ve learned so much from these people,” Anderson told LA School Report. “These are the experts. This is my first time to speak to the LA school board, and I think it’s so important to teach children to be vegan.”

Anderson’s children went to schools in the Malibu school district, and she said she allowed her children to make their own choices. “As a mother, we are always trying to raise healthy kids, and this is one of the serious environmental problems. I’m here as a mom.”

Velez-Mitchell said she came as a journalist but felt she had to speak out about some of the food served at the district. “The food that is served in this school district causes cancer. Give them an option to choose foods that will not cause them cancer.”

Ultimately, the team offered to talk to any of the school board members. Zimmer quickly said, “I’m always happy to talk. And thank you for the samples, they were really good.”

The next step is to get a resolution from the school board, and Lila thinks that will happen.

Lila concluded: “No animal wants to die to become our food.”

Already 23 LAUSD schools are involved with the Fuel Up to Play 60 program that is co-sponsored by the National Dairy Council and the National Football League in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The free program offers schools an online Playbook of strategies to improve physical activity and eating habits. More than 73,000 schools in the country participate in one or more of the programs, reaching more than 38 million students.

To reach more communities, Fuel Up to Play 60 is providing resources in Spanish because of the increasing Hispanic population. LA Unified and Miami-Dade County Public Schools have the most schools participating in the programs. The group wants to spread health benefits to the Hispanic population that is projected to increase to 29 percent of total enrollment by 2024.

“The dairy checkoff is pleased to broaden our Fuel Up to Play 60 resources and make them available to a growing and vital segment of our country’s student population,” said Paul Rovey, Arizona dairy farmer and chairman of Dairy Management Inc., which manages the national dairy checkoff. “All kids deserve the opportunity to lead a healthy life. Fuel Up to Play 60 can help make this happen.”

The organization also helps provide grants to schools for $300 to $4,000. The next deadline is Nov. 4.

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Alliance of Big City School Districts Aims for More Healthful Meals
L.A. Unified and five others are striving to make wholesome food a national standard. They’re working on biodegradable trays and utensils as well. Each district has been assigned a specific project. LA Times
See also: LA Daily News

Elementary Students Experience Their First Opera
A partnership with the Opera, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Department of Transportation and City Councilwoman Jan Perry’s office offers schoolchildren the opportunity to attend the performance. LA Times

Help School Districts by Letting Them Raise Their Own Tax Revenue
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to help inner-city schools at the expense of suburbanites. But there must be a better way to assist the disadvantaged than to trigger class warfare.  And there is. It is to give school districts a better opportunity to raise their own tax revenue. LA Times Opinion

Quick Action Contemplated on New Assessments, API Rewrite
The Public Schools Accountability Act Advisory Committee, which has only held one meeting, is working on incorporating into the state’s school accountability system graduation rates and proof that students are adequately prepared for college and career. SI&A Cabinet Report

State Board Shifts Policy on Eighth Grade Algebra
The State Board of Education ended a decade-long controversial policy of pushing eighth graders to take Algebra I when members voted unanimously Wednesday to strip California’s Algebra I standards from the state’s eighth grade math standards. EdSource

LA Schools Reinventing Art Education
The Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest public school system in the United States with some 700,000 students. In early 2012, “art for the sake of art” became no longer affordable, and the LAUSD Board of Education proposed that its elementary arts budget be reduced to zero. Epoch Times

The gardens were installed with a grant from a non-profit called Kitchen Community and are intended to help fight childhood obesity and diabetes. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who is strong proponent of linking nutrition and education, was on hand to unveil the new gardens. Student nutrition is a big issue for LAUSD: According to a 2011 UCLA Health Research study, 41 percent of 5th, 7th, and 9th graders in LA county are clinically obese or overweight.

Learning gardens serve as outdoor classrooms that encourage students to eat more fruit and vegetables and to play more often outdoors.

Kitchen Community and LAUSD plan to plant three more gardens this year in low-performing schools across the district.

Here’s the LA Times story.

Desert Trails Parents Choose Charter Operator, Next Step in ‘Parent Trigger’
With a low voter turnout Thursday, parents exercising a “parent trigger” option at the Desert Trails Elementary in Adelanto selected a charter operator in nearby Hesperia to run their school starting next August. The selection of LaVerne Elementary Preparatory Academy, a small K-8 charter with an API of 911 – more than 200 points above Desert Trails’ score of 699 this year – marked the next stage in parents’ contentious and protracted exercise of California’s parent empowerment law. Ed Source 

Most Students Give More Healthful State School Menus Thumbs Up
Public school students, by a 3-to-1 margin, say meals have become better tasting under California’s new nutritional standards. For every three California public school students who think school meals are yummier than usual, there’s only one who thinks they’re worse, according to a new poll released Wednesday.  LA Times

The Quantified Student
A LAUSD teacher reflects on her past criticism of education reform’s push for standardized test data; her about-face; and her new belief in the role of standardized testing within education. HuffPo Opinion

Parents, Teachers Can Now Sample Common Core Test Questions
Smarter Balanced, the organization that is designing the Common Core assessments for California and two dozen other member states, released sample test items for parents and teachers last week. As expected, they’re anything but your father’s multiple choice. Ed Source 

Cal State Monterey Bay Sued Over Pro-Prop 30 Email
An anti-tax group is suing Cal State Monterey Bay over an email that urged students to support Proposition 30. That’s Governor Jerry Brown’s tax initiative to stem further cuts to education. KPCC

Once Failing Highland Park School Making Strides
People unfamiliar with Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park might take a quick glance at the campus and its latest student standardized test scores and assume it’s a new, well-performing school. It wasn’t to long ago, however, that the campus was one of Los Angeles Unified School District’s worst performing schools, plagued with gang violence, buildings in danger of collapsing in an earthquake, and many unhappy parents. EGP News

New Wellness Center Opens at Jefferson High
Until now, the school just had a nurse to help their 2,000 students with health issues, but over the last five years they have been planning with LAUSD and the South Central Family Health Center to expand their services. They will now be able to offer much needed preventive health care services, STD checks, and help for chronic issues like asthma and diabetes. Intersections