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...

While discussing cost-saving measures and reducing waste in LA Unified food services, some school board members said they wanted to bring back flavored milk. Superintendent John Deasy banned chocolate and strawberry milk from the school menu five years ago after the school board voted it was too sugary for students. But now LA Unified School Board President Steve...

Students who depend on eating at school for their one — and sometimes only — meal of the day will be able to more easily find a location for free meals during the summer. The expansion of the federal Summer Food Service Program will provide more meals to children and teens 18 years and younger...

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...

LA Unified is making no bones about wanting to change the chicken industry, and federal officials visiting the district Thursday say they’re on their way to doing it. LA Unified became the first large school district in the nation to contract for antibiotic- and hormone-free chicken and turkey in a vote Tuesday. On Thursday, visiting...

Some of LAUSD’s cafeteria freezers are more than three decades old. Some of the stoves in the kitchens don’t work anymore. The board has approved spending up to $856,635 to survey 477 public school cafeterias to see what needs to be upgraded, fixed or replaced. “Many of our kitchens are aged and have walk-in refrigerators...

In a new position statement, a coalition of food professionals from the nation’s six largest school districts, including LA Unified, is asking for triple the amount of money now provided per school lunch by the USDA and allowing for more free meals as well as autonomy on how to serve them. The Urban School Food Alliance, which also...