IDEO
San Francisco Unified School District: A Cafeteria Designed for Me
San Francisco Unified School District
San Francisco Unified School District: A Cafeteria Designed for Me
San Francisco Unified School District: A Cafeteria Designed for Me
The San Francisco Unified School District sought help in reforming its food system: Only 57% of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch eat at school. Working alongside students and staff, SFUSD and the design team created a vision for three age-appropriate dining experiences (and the related operational shifts) needed to transform “school food” from an industrialized, one-size-fits-all program running at a deficit into a desirable, student-centered one that’s financially sustainable. Recommendations for the future vision include family-style dining for elementary school, an app that lets kids pre-order meals and give staff feedback, and dinner kits for working families.
2. The Brief: Summarize the problem you set out to solve. What was the context for the project, and what was the challenge posed to you?
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re back in 8th grade. Having preordered your lunch online the night before, you grab a brown bag from the rolling cart in the cafeteria—no waiting in line. Your meal is fresh, and it’s been sourced from local suppliers and cooked in a communal kitchen. You devour it while seated with your friends on beanbag chairs. On your way out, you pick up a dinner kit for your family.
This is what school lunch could be. But it’s not.
This design challenge was about much more than food—it was about the experience of eating at school. The district had already partnered with Revolution Foods to serve some of the highest nutritional meals in the nation. But when the lunch bell rang, a lot of students weren’t showing up. In a world in which students are used to expressing their opinions on social media, they had no voice in shaping their lunch experience. Additionally, the school food program was running at a financial deficit.
Funded by a grant from the Sara and Evan William’s Foundation, the design firm and SFUSD worked alongside more than 1,300 stakeholders to turn school lunch into an engaging student-centered experience that's financially sustainable.
While the district had a desire to create a visionary roadmap to comprehensively reform school food in San Francisco’s public schools, what they needed was an approach. The Sara and Evan Williams Foundation connected the ambitions of the district with the Design Thinking process of the design team.
Working closely with the district, the design team crafted a student-centered approach that began with a) understanding the needs of the students and staff to then b) design recommendations that were informed by community input, policy, vendor relationships and national best practices.
Working as co-designers throughout the project, the district learned design thinking, so they could address problems in new ways. The team delivered a vision and roadmap for a financially sustainable system that engages students in eating good food, and also equipped the school district with a process that left staff inspired and optimistic about how to solve for school needs beyond the cafeteria.
This research program was designed as a journey of experiences to not only inform and inspire the design, but also to transform the 1,300 people who participated: students, parents, Student Nutrition Services workers, union representatives, principals, administrators, teachers, and policymakers. This diverse stakeholder participation was made possible through SFUSD’s community outreach efforts. Through the following research activities, students and staff increasingly took ownership in the ideas being designed.
April/May: Ethnographic interviews with 260 participants
June: Student photo journals (n=90) and Concept Feedback workshops on early ideas with students, admin, parents, and Student Nutrition Services staff (n=136)
July: Iterative prototyping of the designed experiences with 56 elementary, middle- and high-school students and staff. Online concept feedback survey (n=950)
August: Public exhibition at a middle school, where 178 community guests learned about and gave feedback on “The New Lunch Room” vision.
September: Public forum presentation to the San Francisco Board of Educators.
The design team recommended three age-appropriate dining experiences to support students in developing healthy relationships with food in elementary, middle, and high school. Solutions include communal eating, student-designed spaces, new technology platforms, and take-home dinner kits for busy families.
To be sure these ideas would address the operational deficit, the design team worked closely with SFUSD to develop a robust business model—considering thousands of data points, such as the cost-per-meal of a delivery truck route and where the ¬ketchup was placed in cafeteria. We took federal, state, and local regulations into account, as well as operational and labor constraints. The data-driven financial model, which the district has now adopted, informed the design at every stage.
Additionally, the public/private collaboration enabled three organizations — SFUSD, The Sara and Evan Williams Foundation and the design team — to work together in innovative ways to tackle a public problem which impacts thousands of school children.
The school board unanimously put its support behind the recommendations when presented at a public forum at the end of the first phase (September 2013). Plans are underway to hire staff, secure funding and test the pilot experience at select schools.
This is a tangible example of Systems Design for a complex, publicly funded institution. Every recommendation was presented in terms of emotional impact and financial impact.
Ten design recommendations were made, each varying in its emotional vs. financial impact. There is no magic bullet that will solve all needs of the system; rather, all of the recommendations are interdependent and work progressively to bring balance. For example, the first stage of the implementation roadmap begins with operational shifts and services that will engage more high-school students to participate and create a more financially stable system. This foundation will then enable the district to pursue the higher-touch service of communal eating for elementary students.
To ensure the design embodied the community’s needs, SFUSD introduced the design team to more than 1,300 people in the design process, including students, parents, Student Nutrition Services workers, union representatives, principals, administrators, teachers, funders, policymakers, and advocates. SFUSD and the design team encouraged students to become co-designers of the project, as they were the ultimate “client” of the service.
District administrators, Student Nutrition Services staff, and student representatives (i.e., the community of people who will advance this work)—and not the design team—gave the final presentation to the school board. At this public meeting, community advocates voluntarily stood up in favor of the work, including an elementary-school principal who not only passionately supported the elementary-school food vision, but also nominated his school to begin pilot-testing.
Great to see ‘system design’ as part of Food Design. The project is certainly innovative and interesting but lacks a bit of transparency. We are keen to know the outcomes of the projects when it runs for about a year.