The District’s Response to Student Journalism Deserves Scrutiny

Last week, The Forest Scout published a thoughtful, well-sourced student investigation into lunch pricing, food quality, and vendor practices at Lake Forest High School. It was exactly what student journalism should be: firsthand reporting, careful comparisons with peer districts, and real student voices describing what they experience every day.

What followed was unusual — and worth your attention.

Within days of the article:

The district and its food service vendor released a glossy, co-branded press announcement celebrating QuestFood “innovation” at a different school.

QuestFood CEO “Rebuts” Student

Shortly after that, the vendor's CEO personally wrote a Letter to the Editor to rebut the students’ reporting.

This is not a normal response to a high school newspaper article.

This bears repeating.

This is not a normal response to a high school newspaper article.

The students raised practical, reasonable questions:

• Why are LFHS lunch prices significantly higher than those in comparable districts like Naperville?

• Why are sugary candies prominently sold while healthier options are less visible?

• Why do families in one of Illinois’ highest-spending districts pay more for food that students regularly describe as lower quality?

• How do rising prices affect students who rely on free lunch allocations to eat for the entire day?

  
  

Instead of addressing these questions directly with clear data, pricing logic, and policy explanations, the response escalated into layered messaging — promotional announcements, corporate framing, and reputation defense.

Several parents have also noted a basic inconsistency: students are prohibited from bringing Valentine’s candy to school, yet the cafeteria prominently sells candy at the same time. Even small contradictions like this matter in high-cost districts, because they undermine clarity around nutritional priorities and erode trust.

There is also an important broader context.

The same food service vendor used by LFHS was recently ordered by the Illinois State Board of Education to be terminated in a neighboring North Shore district, with the Board citing procurement violations and referring the matter to state and federal oversight bodies.

This does not imply wrongdoing locally — but it does raise the standard for transparency and communication when concerns arise.

Who Does Our Communications Department Represent? Parents, Students, and Taxpayers? Or Administration and Corporate Interests?

Stepping back, some parents are also asking a more fundamental governance question. 

A taxpayer-funded communications department exists to represent students, families, and the public — not to amplify or coordinate reputation management for contracted vendors.

When student journalism is followed by co-branded messaging and a vendor CEO’s public rebuttal, families are left asking a basic question: Who is being represented here?

What makes this moment troubling isn’t any single document. It’s the pattern:

• Students, parents, or taxpayers speak.

• Institutions respond sideways.

• Substance is replaced with messaging.

When a student newspaper prompts a coordinated public-relations response — including a CEO rebuttal — it stops being treated as “just student journalism” and starts being treated like a reputational threat.

Parents Care is not accusing anyone of misconduct. We are asking a simpler question: Why did clear, direct answers require escalation — and why did they come only after students forced the issue?

Transparency isn’t a press release.

It’s consistency, clarity, and respect for the questions students and families are already asking.

We believe the students did their job. Now it’s time for leadership to do theirs.