A totally unacceptable situation

So 3/4ths of the students at my school are on free and reduced lunch. I've never liked the school lunches that are sent to us, but there didn't seem to be any other alternatives. Then one day I was told by another teacher that the boxes our school lunches were being sent in contained roaches. Kids were stomping on roaches as they took their lunches from the box where the roaches came from. I was angry to say the least but luckily a past parent sent me a news article about a company called Revolution Foods. Then I spoke to a friend at another school and he told me that his school worked with the company and they really liked it. He said one of the good things about the company was they were able to give feedback to the company and have menus changed as a result. I gave them a call and set up a meeting.

The meeting went well and our principal was down with the company. Here's the problem though, right now our food is supplied to us by the district. There are cafeterias at various schools and they make the food for the district. Then the food is sent to other schools within the district. This means the roaches we are getting are coming from the cafeteria at another school. The snag is the food services at the other schools. Working with Revolution Foods would be a direct threat to the business and personnel of the food services throughout the district. In my opinion, if the food that we are getting is bad and unsanitary, then I'm not worried about the business and personnel at food services. I believe that the goal of everyone working in or with education should be the advancement and enhancement of the students. I know, I know it's crazy talk. If food services isn't doing its job right then we need to get something better. They have had plenty of feedback to know that the food they are serving isn't that good. They have had plenty of time to correct the situation.

There are those that would say that the kids should be lucky to have any food at all. I agree with that. Some bad food is better than no food at all. However, in the richest and strongest country in the world I think we have to have significantly higher standards than that. I know, once again it's crazy talk. One option is to get the parents involved. We have to get the parents to push the school district to allow us to change the situation. If we try to change things in-house it won't happen. The push has to come from outside and if parents make a big enough stink then there could be a change. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks.