What did they want to do?
The East Side Union High School District hoped to change eating behaviors and conform to the District's new nutritional focus. The District limited competitive food sales and decreased the anount of junk food sold at fundraising activities. The District also marketed the nutritious school lunch program by creating a promotional week of free meals for all students and staff and providing the nutritiious meals at reduced prices thereafter. The District also drafted a physical activity policy and integrated innovative and slef competitive concepts into the PE program to provide opportunities for students to be physically active outside of PE Classes.

Who took action?
The Nutrition policy was driven by grass-roots efforts from the District’s Student Board Relations Committee. The team comprised a Board member and stakeholders from the Child Nutrition Services, parents, students, staff, and community health partners. The committee conducted and reviewed students, staff and parent surveys. The draft policy was reviewed, modified and reviewed again by School Site Councils, District Advisory Committees, staff, student councils, PTSA groups and health partners. ESUHSD also consulted Project LEAN Partner’s Successful Students through Healthy Food Policies publications and coordinated all activities with the local health departments like the California Nutrition Network, California Project LEAN, California 5 a Day and SHAPE. It was hoped that through these collaborations, all policies would adopt research-based best practices and were in line with regional and state goals.

Where did this happen?
East Side Union High School District (Santa Clara - school

Demographics

• 24,4000 students in grades 9-12

  (Physical Fitness pilot: 6000 students in grades 9-10)

• 29%
• The multicultural student population is comprised of 4.6% African American, 0.4% American Indian, 26.8% Asian, 9.7% Filipino, 42.2% Hispanic, 1.0% Pacific Islander, and 15.2% White.
• The District operates 11 comprehensive high schools, one continuation high school, and five alternative schools. Students from 76 elementary and middle/junior high schools feed into ESUHSD.

Academic Year Implemented
2003-2004 Academic Year

Why did they want to do it?
The East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) hoped to change eating behaviors and conform to the District’s new nutritional focus. ESUHSD limited competitive food sales and decreased the amount of junk food sold fundraising activities. ESUHSD also marketed the nutritious school lunch program by creating a promotional week of free meals for all students and staff and providing the nutritious meals at reduced prices thereafter. As such, ESUHSD addressed the problem of student hunger through provision of cheaper meals and complete anonymity for students participating in the free and reduced lunch program.

In addition to the focus on nutrition, diet, and a healthy lifestyle, the physical activity policy impacted physical fitness behaviors over a lifetime by requiring students to maintain lifetime physical fitness plans and record their progress towards realizing these physical fitness goals.

Background

How did they accomplish their goal?
ESUHSD undertook the following steps:

X Administered annual student surveys and held meetings to ensure that culturally responsive food and vegan/vegetarian/ethnic selections were offered.

X Established a partnership with Sodexho to market weight management, nutritious eating, and healthy behaviors to all stakeholders and formulated a new Nutrition Board Policy that impacted all food sales.

X Set guidelines for School breakfast and free and reduced lunch programs to be prepared according to state and federal nutrition guidelines.

X Offered free lunches for 1 week and thereafter priced them competitively at $2.00 each.

X Put in place an electronic meal card system to relieve the stigma of free meals.

X Sponsored a Community Feeding with nutritionally balanced school cafeteria food and provided students with nutritional information during their classes

X Continued to support the Nutrition, Health and Food Preparation classes and purchased some Food Processor Programs for students to create personalized, affordable menus

X Organized public awareness campaigns on obesity prevention, nutrition education and physical fitness

X Applied for and received the Carol M. White Physical Education Grant. ESUHSD also piloted a Physical Activity/Education Policy in 5 out of its 11 comprehensive high schools

X Drafted the nutrition and physical activity policy with the participation of stakeholders and parents, who were provided with translators when needed

X Integrated innovative and self competitive concepts into the PE program to provide opportunities for students to be physically active outside PE class

X Developed a PE curriculum that incorporated all of the State's PE standards for PE instruction. This was revised by the San Jose Sate University School of Education staff, the District English Learner Advisory Committee, the District Advisory Committee and the Board of Trustees.

What were their results?
Revamped ala carte menu: Foods like yogurt, bagel and fresh fruit were included, nutritional offerings were increased by 76%, and foods of minimal nutritional value were eliminated.

Vending machines: Pretzels, oatmeal cookies, granola bars, and baked potato chips were included and the healthy foods selection in vending machines was increased by 65%.

Daily lunches: Average number of daily lunches sold grew by 47%, and students are buying more nutritionally-based items.

Soda availability: The Child Nutrition Services Manager has successfully negotiated a 40% reduction in soda availability, in spite of the contract with Pepsi approved under the previous administration. Soda has been replaced with drinks that meet the SB19 standards. E.g. water, juices, fruit drinks and sports drinks.

Pilot physical education policy: The students’ Fitnessgram scores increased.

What are their future plans?
ESUHSD plans to increase access to healthy foods by completely replacing all junk food with healthy alternatives in the very near future. In addition, because regular physical activity and sound nutritional habits not only reduce the risk of premature mortality and many life-threatening diseases, but also improve students’ academic performance, self-esteem, and mental health, ESUHSD is expanding and enhancing the curriculum it introduced with its Project Act I pilot program to all of its schools.

For More Information Contact
Lynda Remley (Grant Coordinator)
East Side Union High School District (Santa Clara
830 North Capitol Avenue
San Jose, CA  95133
United States
(408)347-5067
[email protected]
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