The Board of Education recognizes the important connection between a healthy diet and a student’s ability to learn effectively and achieve high standards in school. Click here for more information about BUSD meals program.

Breakfast

All students may eat a free nutritious breakfast every day as part of the Universal Breakfast Program. Teachers do begin instruction during breakfast time, so regardless of whether or not your child chooses to eat Universal Breakfast, it is important that your child arrive to school on time at 8:00 am.

Lunch

Berkeley Unified has a School Lunch Initiative (SLI), which has two goals: to serve more nutritious and delicious, freshly prepared meals using locally grown food to all of our students, and to educate children in kitchen, garden and academic classrooms about their food choices and the impact those choices have on their health, the community and the environment.

Families will receive an Elementary School Menu at the beginning of the school year that shows the breakfasts and lunches for the entire school year. More information about the BUSD Nutrition Services is contained in this annual menu. This year, lunch is free to all families. (Please note all families must complete a free or reduced lunch application regardless of income.)

Click Here for the Lunch Schedule by grade

If your child brings a lunch from home, please pack nutritious foods in a lunch box or sturdy bag. Backpacks are not allowed in the cafeteria or out on the playground during lunchtime.

We want to encourage all students to develop healthy eating habits. As part of our school-wide rules and BUSD nutrition guidelines candy, chips, soda, gum, and sunflower seeds are not allowed at school.

Green Waste

Thousand Oaks has green waste bins and recycling set up in the cafeteria and on the yard so that students can separate their trash and food waste when they are finished eating. Students learn how to separate their trash and can volunteer to be part of the “Green Team” to help with recycling. By “going green” we aim to reduce the amount of cafeteria waste that once ended up in landfills.