By Yerin Oh

The Mirror Staff

Brent Walmsley said, “I can’t think of anywhere else we would do this. We wouldn’t serve caramel apples to increase apple consumption.”

“Right now we are… taking garbage bags filled with milk to landfills, and that just doesn’t make any sense to me,” said Monica Ratliff.

Board member Scott Schmerelson said, “At every school i go to, the request is for flavored milk. There’s not one school that I’ve gone to where they say they don’t want flavored milk.”

NEWS

The Drought Is Over at L.A. Schools—For Chocolate Milk, Anyway

NEWS: Will chocolate and strawberry milk be back on the Van Nuys High School menu? It’s a possibility.

Chocolate and strawberry flavored milk was dropped from LAUSD menus in 2011 after the School Board banned it with a vote of 6 to 1.

It may soon be served again in Los Angeles schools.

Parents and advocates successfully argued that the huge amounts of unnecessary sugar in flavored milk directly contributed to childhood obesity.

So milk has been off the school menu for five years.

However, School Board members have decided to reintroduce flavored milk at certain schools on a trial basis, to determine whether bringing back flavored milk will help reduce the current massive waste of unflavored milk, most of which is dumped in landfills.

School Board member Monica Ratliff, offered the idea of reintroducing flavored milk to schools. There will be 21 schools that will participate in the study, and their cafeterias will be used as science laboratories for the experiment.

LAUSD’s own research shows that over 600 tons of organic waste per week, particularly milk, gets sent to the dump by the district. That adds up to over 24,000 tons per school year.

For now, unfortunately, Van Nuys High School is not one of the pilot schools.

According to Rose Avetisyan, the community representative in the Van Nuys High School Parent Center, BIC (Breakfast In the Classroom) brings huge amounts of leftover milk to the parent center that finds its way to local needy families.

The unopened milk cartons are donated to a local church, as does unspoiled leftover food.

“We are so happy that instead of the food landing in the waste, we are donating it to a church, from which it goes to the families that are in need” said Avetisyan stated,

A 2014 Cornell University study in Oregon elementary schools indicated that after flavored milk was banned, students’ sugar intake did drop, but so did milk intake.

The school districts’ milk supplier has offered to lower the amount of sugar added in flavored milk if the Board will end the ban.

Brent Walmsley, the founder of SugarWatch, a health advocate organization supports banning flavored milk in schools.

“I can’t think of anywhere else we would do this,” Walmsley said. “We wouldn’t serve caramel apples to increase apple consumption.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson stated, “At every school I go to, the request is for flavored milk. There’s not one school that I’ve gone to where they say they don’t want flavored milk.”

As the flavored milk news spreads throughout school, students and staff members are getting their hopes up that it will be reintroduced.

“I think it’s a great idea bringing back flavored milk,” said Maria Rodriguez, the Van Nuys High School Cafeteria Manager. “It will raise participation with the students.”

Ms. Rosa De Santiago, the Senior Administrative Assistant in the main office also commented, “I love it. I want it. When can I have it?”

In an informal poll taken in Ms. Priyanka Nirmal’s sixth period Honors chemistry class, students the majority of students supported the idea of reintroducing flavored milk. 19 out of 32 students voted that they wanted flavored milks to be on the menu.

“Right now we are taking garbage bags filled with milk to landfills, and that just doesn’t make any sense to me,” stated Monica Ratliff.