The San Diego County Office of Education’s Juvenile Court and Community Schools now has a nutrition services team that will help to lower costs and increase options for student meals.

Four food services field assistants were hired in July and two more will start in August. They will serve food at court and community schools across the county, ensuring compliance with nutritional and food-safety guidelines as well as freeing up educators to spend more of their time teaching.

“I have a really good team,” said Jerry Smith, food services program supervisor. “I would consider them the best in the county at what they do.”

The team includes Magdalena Lujano, Felipe Mendoza, Lucero Diaz-Kennon, Kim Garcia, and Elaina Brown.

Smith said he’s excited about putting together the team that’s going to help make serving food more efficient and reliable. JCCS has never had a food services team before and has contracted with local school districts to provide meals.

“I’m looking to offer the change and selection that the kids are asking for,” he said.

Part of that change is a pilot program he started in January for the nearly 200 students at JCCS’s Metro facility in downtown San Diego.

In the future, Smith would like to work with the San Diego County Office of Education's Career-Technical Education team to create more culinary arts programs to teach JCCS students skills that will help them get jobs in hotels and restaurants.