High Schoolers Get CPS’ Attention with Website and Lunch Boycott
More than 80 percent of Roosevelt High School students boycotted school lunch Monday to protest school food. Many ate granola, yogurt and fruit donated by supporters.
(WBEZ/Monica Eng)
Monday morning Roosevelt High School students and their teacher Tim Meegan unloaded thousands of bags of granola donated to support their lunch boycott.
Nearly a thousand students skipped school lunch at Roosevelt High School on the North Side Monday.
It was part of their larger project (which includes a petition and website) to change food in Chicago Public Schools-- food they consider unhealthy and unappetizing.
Their civics teacher Tim Meegan said that 143 boycotted on Thursday and 437 (more than a third of students) boycotted on Friday, according to lunch staff counts. Monday that number blew up to 952 (or more than 80 percent of students), Meegan said late Monday afternoon.
It was harder for the teacher to check progress Monday morning when I visited the school. That’s because he was outside with students unloading 10,000 bags of puffed rice granola donated by health group Mercola.com.
It joined a shipment of organic fruit and yogurt from Chicago’s Dill Pickle Co-Op.
“This way we’re well-stocked in case the kids need to continue the boycott,” Meegan said, carrying boxes from a massive white truck.
The boxes were going into the school to be handed out to boycotting students.
Meegan said that, in addition to the food donations, “We’ve gotten messages of support from teachers, students and administrators at different school districts, [and] food justice groups from all over the country.”
But the teacher and his students have also gotten push back. Last week CPS Nutrition Services head, Leslie Fowler, wrote to them asking for a meeting, but also implying that their boycott could cost the Roosevelt lunch staff pay.
"Lunchroom staff are paid on a sliding scale based on meals served,” confirmed CPS spokesperson Emily Bittner in an email to WBEZ, “and their pay will be reduced for the next school year if a large number of meals are lost.”
Louise Babbs who’s a lunch worker and organizer for the CPS lunch workers union, Unite Local One, however, sent this statement:
"CPS lunch ladies are paid by the hour, and our members will faithfully report to work regardless because the kids come first. We've been fighting for good fresh food for years, and we support any efforts on the part of students to do the same."
WBEZ is continuing to investigate the question of commissions for lunch workers based on the number of meals taken.
Meegan accused the district’s food service company Aramark of trying undermine the boycott Nearly 1,000 North Side high schoolers skip school lunch | WBEZ 91.5 Chicago: