Nutritious+School+Lunches

Democracy and Active Citizenship Project
 * What should be prepared for the Dialogues in Democracy Night? Click the link below to find out: **

__Problem Statement:__
__ Problem Statement: __ The school of North Kingstown needs a good food policy to ensure that students are fed with properly cooked and handled foods. We are to get the needed nutrients in each meal that is given to us with the lunch for the proper 3 dollars.

__Bill or Policy:__
Bill RELATIONG TO FOOD- school lunch policy ** __Introduced By:__ ** James Perry, Russell Sherwood **__ Date Introduced: __** May 9th **__ Referred To: __** School committee 1 Preamble: Whereas most schools are supported by the federal government to be 2 prepared with lunches since the 1900’s, we are also funded by the federal government. 3 We, students at North Kingstown High School pay for the food provided by the 4 governments which we feel could be more satisfying healthier processed meals. 5 It is enacted by the school committee as follows: 6 section 1. Better quality and more healthy food: the food coming in to the school 7 come cooked or uncooked and could have some contamination problems. 8 (1) The malnutrition among the students have become a concern to health 9 agencies. We need to be supplied with food that companies know is not contaminated 10 or badly processed. 11 section 2. Outcome of food at NK High: the techniques used for cooking the food 12 that come in is usually a reheating in oven like trays. 13 (1) Many times, the food is too hard or stale. Some meals are in a cardboard box 14 and stuck under a light which is not proper cooking. NK should get partially cooked 15 foods so we can cook it the rest of the way. Students will be more satisfied. 16 (2) if meals were cooked not reheated more students would buy school food to 17 give us more money. 18 section 3. Better improved equipment for staff: the equipment for cooking or 19 reheating food is old and used as a microwave. We need better ovens. 20 (1) if we use fundraisers like dances to buy a higher powering oven, we can 21 cook food faster and will be more proficient. 22 (2) the staff will be happier with real ovens doing more work. It will help process 23 meals better as well. 24 Enactment Clause 25 This will establish a better kitchen environment with a healthier selection of food 26 provided from the government to make the school a better place. 27 This bill will take effect on August 27, 2011.


 * __Lobbying Plan:__**

Lobbying Plan

Our project is about improving the lunches served at North Kingstown High School. We will be sending our plan to Chairperson ** Richard A. Welch on June 2nd 2011.we will continue to send letters every other day until the chairperson responds. We will use email, mail and phone calls to follow up with the chairperson. **  ** We will ask Chairperson Richard A. Welch or Vice chairperson Kimberly Page to support our policy and bring it up in the next school committee meeting. ** ** We will ask the student body of North Kingstown to support our bill and we will also ask the principal, superintendent and kitchen staff at North Kingstown to support our bill. ** There is no one group organized to stand against us but there are tax payers that may not support our bill because they may have to pay more for the better foods, there is also the people concerned with the schools budget that may not support the bill because they feel the old lunches are adequate and there is no room in the budget for new better foods. We can work with these people by trying to find the cheapest good quality food options to keep the cost down. We will provide the school committee with the testimony that better school lunches will create a more focused student body and the grades of the students will improve and the schools test scores will go up as a result. We will have flyers and posters at this meeting.

__Direct Action Plan:__
Plan for direct Action In Order to get the school to change the school lunches there are many ways to get the schools attention. The first step is bringing the poor quality of the lunches to the schools attention. We must show them the pictures of what they are serving us as food. We also can set up posters, flyers, etc around the school to get the student body to stand together and form a large group protesting the lunches the school serves us. When we have the group organized we will have everyone in the group bring lunch from home and boycott the school lunches until they are changed or improved.

__Leaflet / Flyer:__
LET’S PAY THREE DOLLARS FOR BETTER QUALITY FOOD!!!!!! On June 9th 2011, go the North Kingstown High School Cafeteria. Our Aim is to deliver good Quality Lunches to the student Body at North Kingstown High School. We don’t want to eat this unsatisfying looking food anymore! Come support us!

__Media Advisory:__
May 25, 2011 Contact James Perry, (401)-564-7262 Better school lunches  Better school lunches tries to improve the quality of lunches served to the student body at North Kingstown High school. North Kingstown, RI- More than 20 students from North Kingstown and Jamestown are expected to turn out on June 9th to volley our plans of improving the lunches served at North Kingstown High School according to James Perry and Russell Sherwood. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Better School Lunches has planned a way the students can talk to the school committee and volley our plan to improve the lunches served at North Kingstown High School. In order to improve the lunches served, we must Gather support in the school committee and gain favor with the principals and superintendents at North Kingstown High School. This project will improve not only the quality of our lunches but it will also improve the quality of the students. With better food served the students will focus better in classes and perform better during the day. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Who: School committee members and students will be there <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">What: Better school lunches <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Where: 150 Fairway Drive, North Kingstown, Rhode Island 02852 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">When: June 9th 7:00 to 8:00 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">We are trying to persuade the school committee to bring the quality lunches at North Kingstown.

__Letter to Elected Official:__
May 19, 2011 Richard A. Welch <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Chairperson <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">School Committee <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">8 Arrow Lane <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">North Kingstown, RI 20852 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Dear Richard A. Welch, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> My friend and I have been researching food quality and nutritional health factors that the school lunches and lunch equipment give to the students of North Kingstown High School. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">I live in North Kingstown and go to North Kingstown High School which is supported by the federal government’s donations to get its food. I feel that the national school program does not meet the necessary needs for healthy, advertising lunches. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The National School lunch program gets most of its foods from the federal government which could be contaminated meats which are less nutritious than fast food restaurants. “Another USA Today <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|article] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> reveals that the chicken sent to schools by the USDA is otherwise used in pet food and compost” (Maggie Mertens). The school lunches also don’t really provide the needed fruits and minerals needed for the students to become satisfied or have the ability to concentrate. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">I also feel concerned with the way the food is cooked or reheated and processed. I feel that food should be cooked and not reheated in hot rack ovens. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">I encourage you to support our issue with school lunches for the wellbeing of the student body. I hope you can see the problems with the health factors.

__Letter to the Editor:__
Dear Editor, The Poor quality lunches served at North Kingstown High School is ruining the potential that students have during the day at North Kingstown High School. Better school lunches is an origination fighting for better quality foods served to students on any grade level. The Foods used to feed students are bought by the government and are always of a low quality. Places like KFC or McDonalds always rejects the animal or plants bought by the government due to its age or risk of contamination. If fast food restaurants deny use of these foods bought by the government, shouldn’t the schools? The schools should be responsible for the low quality foods they buy and can easily replace these low quality foods with older farm animals and aid from local supermarkets. Sincerely, Russell Sherwood and James Perry

__Public Service Announcement:__
<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 180%;">REMINDER: Dialogues for Democracy will be held at 7:00 PM Thursday June 9th in the high school cafeteria. You are required to be there.

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