by Dana Woldow

The recent Los Angeles Times article revealing that LA Unified School District's new healthier lunch menu was being rejected by many students generated a tidal wave of snark from those who believe schools shouldn't be feeding hungry kids at all, let alone trying to offer them healthy food. The second-largest school district in the country, which serves about 650,000 meals per day to mostly low income students, has long been a leader in fighting junk food, with soda banned from LA schools in January 2004 and strict limits set on the sale of junk food in schools as of July 2004.

The new menu was rolled out to schools at the start of the 2011-12 school year, after passing many taste tests conducted with students. However, less than 4 months later, LAUSD has announced that half the new menu will be dumped and some traditional daily standbys such as pizza and hamburgers will be reintroduced.

It seemed like LAUSD was trying to do everything right: they spent over a year creating the new menu, developed a variety of new offerings drawn from the multitude of cultures represented by their students, taste tested it with kids, and promoted it heavily. How could it all have gone so wrong, and what lessons can be learned from the LA experience?

Lesson #1: Don't Move Too Fast

Although changes to the school lunch menu had long been in the works, the changes were all implemented at the same time, at the start of the current school year. All of the old familiar favorites - chicken nuggets, corn dogs, pizza ...

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