INSIDE SCOOP
COMMENTARY
GREEN MONDAYS
USDA ORDERS RECORD MEAT RECALL PAGE 3 OLD AND NEW COLLIDE PAGE 4 CAN COAL BE CLEAN? PAGE 13
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2008
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Volume 7 Issue 83
Santa Monica Daily Press
BIBBY HEADS FOR ATLANTA SEE PAGE 14
Since 2001: A news odyssey
THE GONE GREEN ISSUE
What’s for lunch at local schools? School district offers diverse mix of choices
SEE RELATED STORY ■ Legal problems continue to mount PAGE 3
BY MELODY HANATANI Daily Press Staff Writer
WILMONT Everyday when the clock strikes 12:06 p.m., the tranquility of the central courtyard at Lincoln Middle School is disrupted — a sonic boom of enthusiastic schoolyard chatter erupts as hundreds of students file out of their classrooms, some with brown bags in hand, others forming lines in front of strategically placed carts. Lunchtime has just commenced. While it doesn’t have the moniker of being the “most important meal of the day,” the mid-day food break is nevertheless considered just as vital to the physical and educational nourishment of students in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The quality of the food provided in lunch in the nation’s schools was recently called into question by federal officials when reports surfaced of inhumane cattle handling practices at a Chino slaughterhouse. Once one of the largest suppliers of beef to school districts nationwide, Hallmark Meat Packaging’s operations were suspended by the federal government earlier this month, prompting districts across the country to pull beef from their programs as a precautionary measure, including,
Photo courtesy Santa Monica High School
CHECKING IT TWICE: General Manager Tenzin Chodak (center) goes over the financial numbers with Sonam Chodak at the Vikes’ Cafe on the Campus of Santa Monica High School.
reportedly, the SMMUSD. So what’s in the lunch? SMMUSD is among 12 school districts in the South Bay area that is part of a purchasing cooperative agreement, all buying food through the same local distributors and vendors.
All items, whether it is milk, vegetables or even bread, is purchased from a local Los Angeles-area vendor, according to Orlando Griego, the director of Food Services for the district. The lunch menus for all the elementary schools are planned centrally at the dis-
trict’s headquarters, while the middle schools and high schools have the option of serving various lunch options from a list that is approved by the district’s nutritionist, Donna Richwine, who studies each item to be sure it is compliant with state and federal standards. The reason for giving students the option of choosing their own lunch starting in the middle school years has to do with the maturation process of becoming young adults, Griego said. “The youngsters are becoming adults and are able to make choices for themselves,” Griego said. Each campus also offers after-lunch snacks, whether it’s cookies at the elementary schools or vending machines at the middle school and high schools, the latter of which still serves soda but will be phased out completely by July 2009. The students at Santa Monica High School also have the added option of buying their lunch from the Vikes’ Café, a venture operated by the student organization, Students for the Advancement of Global Leadership (SAGE). SAGE began operating the Vikes’ Inn Student Store in 1994 and two years later, SEE LUNCH PAGE 11
COMMUNITYPROFILES CHRISTINE SCHULTZ
Professing a love for the classroom BY NATALIE EDWARDS Special to the Daily Press
Natalie Edwards news@smdp.com
INNOVATIVE EDUCATOR: SMC’s Christine Schultz brings a joy of teaching into each and every one of her classes.
Gary Limjap (310) 586-0339
SMC Christine Schultz, chair of the philosophy and social science department at Santa Monica College, had a particularly good day teaching class last week. Extemporizing on the scientific method, emphasizing the importance of the process of solving questions over the value of answers, Schultz got her students to howl with laughter. The blond haired and cerulean eyed political science professor related to the students in the introductory state government class through their variety of majors. What mattered, she told them with the spontaneous vitality that con-
tinuously animates her delivery, was not what organism was in the petri dish or the identification of the hero in the novel — she, a history buff, didn’t care — but how they arrived at the solution. For the moment to be funny, of course, you would have had to witness the professor’s irreverence among the 45 otherwise sleepy-eyed students enrolled in the 8 a.m. class. "I’ve never done that before and yet that was exactly the right thing to do. I’m always seeing that there are new ways to teach something,” Schultz said. It is a testament not just to Schultz’s charisma but her willingness to learn and adapt her teaching style that she was among four winners of the 2008
platinum
Hayward Award for Excellence in Education, considered the highest honor for California community college faculty. The last time an SMC faculty member won the award, given out by the state’s Academic Senate, was in 1989. Schultz is appreciative of the recognition, even if she has already long been satisfied just with the extent of student feedback she has received over two decades of teaching. “I’ve always said for 24 years that I would do what I do for free. There are a couple days when I want to be paid but I really do love teaching. I’ve always said that you don’t need to be SEE CP PAGE 12
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