Food Culture

SFUSD’s Future Dining Experience (FDE), an initiative of SFUSD SNS, is dedicated to comprehensively redesigning the school food experience through the creation of a student-centered, equitable, and financially stable system that provides access to and engages all students in eating fresh, healthy meals. In order to serve this vision, our team strives to activate student voices and engage with the broader SFUSD community in creating a strong food culture. When all voices are represented, food has the power to build community.

How we get there 

• Engagement with SFUSD students and incorporation of student voice into departmental decisions
• Community partnerships within and outside SFUSD
• Engagement with SFUSD’s adult community and partnership with key school stakeholders 

FDE’s Student Engagement Coordinator oversees a multifaceted student engagement strategy, which includes school food taste tests, focus groups, interactive workshops, information sessions, and collaboration with student leadership groups. 

Our team is currently working towards the creation of a fully student-approved menu, and gaining student approval on new menu items has become an integrated part of the menu development process. 

In the 2025-2026 school year, the FDE team held more than 25 student engagement events across more than 20 school sites, as well as multi-school engagements, reaching more than 2,000 total students. 

Interested in SNS student engagement at your school? Email Student Engagement Coordinator, Gillian Rude. 

Leveraging city and community partnerships that mutually support our programs and families allows us to expand our support for student well-being. We collaborate to host events for students, parents, teachers, and the school community to provide resources on nutrition, school meals, and family benefits. 

SNS has an active presence at many school and community events each year. For example, our team participates in the annual Student Leadership Summit hosted by the Student Advisory Council, training events for school Wellness Staff, school Wellness Fairs, Back to School Nights, and more. We also collaborate with external community partners, including the Department of Environment’s annual Climate Action Youth Summit and FAACTS’ annual Food Action Summit. 

In October 2025, SNS celebrated National School Lunch Week by partnering within the Center for Ecoliteracy (CEL) on their California Flavors / Sabores de California campaign. As part of this campaign, CEL developed several school food recipes that incorporated crops grown in California and highlighted a diverse range of culinary traditions, with the goal of expanding culturally relevant recipes available to students and utilizing fresh, seasonal ingredients. We then hosted student taste tests of these menu items to collect student feedback. The event was highlighted by several local news sources.

In Spring 2026, SNS was excited to partner with GENYOUth in hosting a culinary competition between Culinary pre-professional students from SFUSD and Los Angeles Unified School District. Students were required to develop recipes that met USDA, CDE, and District-wide nutritional standards and fit in the school meal pattern. Students from both teams created and prepared both a breakfast and a lunch entree designed to be a compliant school meal. This experience was very exciting and empowering for our students, and helped them contextualize the highly specific regulations on school food. Here is a video about this competition.

SNS partners with several SFUSD community groups, including: District English Learners Advisory Committee (DELAC), Asian Parent Advisory Committee (APAC), Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Mātua Advisory Council (MAC), African American Parent Advisory Council (AAPAC), Latinx Community Council (LCC), Community Advisory Committee for Special Education (CAC), Queer Trans Parent Advisory Council (QTPAC), Second District PTA, and various site specific parent associations. Our team joins community meetings and workshops, attends school events like Back to School Night, and presents to parent groups and PTAs with the goal to further educate and inform our families about how accessible, delicious, and nutritious school meals are. 

SNS partners with and presents to multiple staff groups as part of professional development opportunities, including contributing to training for Health Advocates, who support health education at elementary schools, and Health Educators, who teach health classes at middle and high schools. We also work in partnership with school Wellness teams including Community Health Outreach Workers (CHOWs), School Nurses, and School Social Workers, as well as Student Advisors, and Community Schools Coordinators. These partnerships emphasize the strong connection between school food and student wellness and achievement, and help promote students’ healthy relationships with food and contribute to a strong school food culture. 

Interested in SNS adult engagement opportunities? Email Parent & Community Coordinator, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Liu.