The Cougar Press

Friday, April 28, 2023

VHS college and career center holds a guest speaker series

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The college and career center has kicked off its career speaker series that began on March 15 with Charles Su, a senior project manager for Amazon and a Yale University and VHS alum. He was the speaker chosen for the business and finance section.

The speaker series will continue into April and May, with guest speakers from all different career pathways and their personal stories to share, like how they got to their position, what schooling they went through and what it took to work their way to their current job. Sign-ups for all sessions are in the college and career center, but once filled, there is a waitlist.

Sonja Frias, a VHS counselor, said, “Ms. Roberts has developed a young alumni speaker series — meaning she has speakers who are previous VHS graduates that come to speak about what they are doing in the world with their

The college and career center that is usually used for college guest speakers has now been shifted into career pathway speakers for the end of the school year and into the spring. The purpose for this is because not all students want to go straight to a fouryear university. The college and career center thought it would be nice to appeal to all VHS students and offer guest speakers that can spark new interests in students.

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Pulido said, “I think it offers different experiences and no one’s path is the same or linear so I think it’s good to hear different stories and hopefully a story inspires a student to like to pursue that path.”

“I think now and in the future [students can benefit from these guest speakers]...” thecougarpress.org

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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe Healthcare will include Nox Espejel, a dental hygienist, and Miles du Mosch, a physical therapist, both in May. Public safety will showcase Jose Vargas, VC sheriff, and Casey Schroepfer, a firefighter, which will both take place in April. Also in April is Aspen Levitt, whose profession is in animation and film. The law, the beauty industry and information technology are all to be determined.

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Caroline Pulido, the college and career technician, said, “I figured we would invite guest speakers and have them talk about their experiences and their profession and see if there’s anything students can take away for themselves.”

There will be a guest speaker for healthcare, film and entertainment, law, public safety, the beauty industry, information technology and the one that has already passed business and finance. With so many different career pathways, students can learn about what it takes to get to these jobs and if they could be a good fit for them.

The college and career center is room 106, where all the guest speakers present to students. Pulido said, “I think for me, if a lot of students come in that’s great but even if there’s five hopefully one or two of those students is inspired.”

VUSD to improve quality of school lunches

Alejandro Hernandez

In the 2021-22 school year, the VUSD Food and Nutrition Services Department department began transitioning the district’s school lunches to be fresher, reducing the amount of pre-packaged food served. As a result, most middle and high schools in the district will install tilt skillets to accommodate an increase in cooking safely, sandwich bars serving freshly-prepared

2023-24 sandwiches and begin to serve nearly exclusively foods made with whole ingredients. VHS already has a tilt skillet installed and an operational sandwich bar but will follow suit with the VUSD in making nutritional changes to student meals; the school will serve fresher foods cooked with raw ingredients.

VUSD Director of Food and Nutrition Services Kara Muniz said, “We want to move towards more scratch cooking,

[with] raw ground beef and chicken. We do a lot of speed scratch [cooking], which means most of our meats come in cooked, but we add stuff to them. We’re really getting away from packaged food. Right now, we have two items that are packaged; we [carry] a pan dulce that students absolutely love and a muffin. Next year, we will make homemade muffins, so we’ll have one [pre-packaged] item next year.”

Muniz said, “The two products we are planning to purchase raw, [ground beef and chicken], will cost about 40 percent [more] than the current cooked product. These two products will only be used once a month, so it should not impact us financially. As we look to more whole foods, we will have to make sure it is [of] reasonable cost.”

Denzel Vo ’26 said, “Changing to fresher food is a positive change in our school lunches, especially when some of these processed foods may not be healthy for a young

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VUSD observes legal caloric and dietary requirements for all of its students as set by the USDA, though the requirements are relative to their grade levels. As for high school students, they are to have an average of 750 to 850 calories per lunch meal over a school week.

Muniz said, “The less processed food we provide to students, the better, and starting off with non-packaged [foods] and moving towards more raw [ingredients] is what’s going to get us there. We cannot, as a district, say we’re going to go from [serving] completely processed food to [cooking] raw [food] overnight. It takes time and it takes training. We have to be very responsible when we are serving stuff from the raw state. [But] health wise, the less chemicals that go into [foodstuffs], [the] better [it is] for you, and that’s our goal. We want whole foods for our students.”

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