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Orange Glen Students Get a Taste of Life Skills in Culinary Arts Program

When people talk about student readiness, they are usually referring to academic skills. At Orange Glen High School in Escondido, in addition to top academics, many students are graduating with practical skills too. For over 20 years, Orange Glen has offered culinary arts classes. Eight years ago, they expanded their program when they built a commercial kitchen that gives students real-life experiences prepping, preparing, and cooking in an actual restaurant-style kitchen. This training also provides certification that allows students to work in any restaurant or food service establishment when they complete the courses.

Culinary Arts teacher Kristi Sovacool has been teaching at Orange Glen for over 11 years. She believes students are getting unique skills and hands-on training in part because of the commercial-grade kitchen at the school. “We pride ourselves on training students if they want to go into the food and hospitality industry. Our commercial kitchen looks like the back of a restaurant.”

Orange Glen offers four courses in culinary arts including Culinary Arts and Food Science, International Cuisine, Baking and Pastries, and Advanced Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management. All students in grades nine to12 are allowed to enroll in every class, but Culinary Arts and Food Science is the prerequisite to the upper-level classes. All classes meet the requirement for general elective in practical arts.

These classes offer students advanced skills in cooking and so much more. Sovacool stressed that these classes really strive to create students who are critical thinkers and problem solvers. In addition to prepping, cooking, and tasting foods weekly, the curriculum includes quite a bit of reading and writing. “Students are always shocked to find that out.” she said,“We see the value of students getting better at their reading and writing skills in a subject that might be a little more fun.”

Of course, cooking is math and science and these skills are refined in the culinary arts program. Sovacool said, “In the first level class we talk about the different ways that baking is science. For instance, they just finished an egg unit and discussed the science behind the forming of the egg white when an egg is boiled or cooked. They use their math skills in the most practical way when it comes to measuring, weighing, and considering cooking times as these tasks require the use of following directions, addition, multiplication, and understanding fractions.”

Cooking is also about being prepared and organized. This is yet another skill that students learn and can incorporate into their daily lives. Sovacool said she often starts her class by saying, “Let’s mise en place!” Mise en place is a French term that means “everything in its place.” It is a phrase often used in the restaurant industry and is known throughout the cooking community. The students know this is an instruction to get their cooking station set up and in order.  Sovacool said this practice of preparing and organizing can be applied in other outlets in the student’s life including homework, sports, or work.

As far as understanding nutrition, this lesson is taught in all the classes. Students get a clear understanding of how food is categorized into proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. They learn how to substitute ingredients and the nutrition values in the things they add to their meals. Sovacool states, “One of our goals is to educate our students on what kinds of foods are healthier versus processed foods. It’s eye-opening for them when we talk about it.” Sovacool included that a big part of the education in her classes is to show her students what healthy eating looks like.

The students also learn the ins and outs of running a restaurant. Part of the curriculum includes giving back to the community through special events in the community. Past events such as a catering food for the Children's Museum in Escondido, a project with UBER eats and local restaurants, and making cookies for foster kids in the area, and visiting local retirement facilities around the holidays. 

Orange Glen High School also has a café set up on campus called Patriot’s Café. This café hosts a monthly lunch for all the staff that is prepared and served by the students. 

During the month of November, a special VIP lunch will be served to teachers and Escondido city officials so they can experience the positive learning this program continues to provide to the students. Sovacool said, “We are excited to show off our program to many of these community members!” Guests will include the mayor and deputy mayor of Escondido, many council members,City department leaders , the fire and police chief, as well as superintendents from both the Escondido Union High School District and Escondido Union School District.

Soon the program hopes to include a farm-to-table aspect to the program. An after school program has sprouted a garden on campus that Sovacool hopes will provide fresh fruit and vegetables for the students to include in their recipes.

The culinary program is staffed by three teachers including Sovacool who teaches the first level course as well as Baking and Pastry. The Culinary Arts program is popular at Orange Glen with an even mix of boys and girls signing up for courses. Although they don’t have any formal records regarding how many students go on into culinary arts once they have graduated, Sovacool says she knows a handful of students who have gone into the restaurant and hospitality business. This is a plus for these students as San Diego’s tourism industry employs 194,000 San Diegans in fields directly related to hospitality, including lodging, food service, attractions, and transportation according to December 2018 reports from the Employment Development Department (EDD).

Sovacool believes this training and certification also gives back to the Escondido community. She said, “By equipping students to enter the food industry through our program,  we also hope to give back by preparing students for the workplace who might end up working in Escondido and thus contributing to the community we love.” 

The Escondido community has also supported the program by opening their doors to students through field trips. Some of these include: Vintana, Cute Cakes Bakery, Los Primos Mexican Food, Mike's BBQ, Broken Yolk, and The Paleta Bar. Owners of these establishments have led students on tours of their facilities, spoken with them about running a successful business in Escondido, explained how they got started, and answered questions about marketing and the business end of things. This has given students exposure to the many different types of restaurants in their community and an understanding of what it takes to work in the food industry. 

Teaching the program and working at Orange Glen High School has been a pleasure for Sovacool, who said, “Orange Glen High School has the best students. I feel we are so lucky to teach in this community and have the students we have.”

The Culinary Arts program is a CTE (Career Technical Education) pathway that provides students with an ANSI Accredited Food Handlers Card. This is a certification that is required for anyone working in the restaurant or food service industry in California and is valid for three years after completion.

Orange Glen High School offers students CTE pathways in several subjects including, Auto Tech, Media Arts, Computer Science, and Culinary Arts. Each program gives students practical skills related to their field that they can use to either enter the workforce after they graduate, or use the credits to accelerate to more advanced courses when they enter college.

Orange Glen High School offers many learning options for its students, and the Culinary Arts program continues to make applied learning a tasty option.

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Left Coast Engineering: Where Ideas Become Realities in Escondido

In an unassuming building on Escondido Boulevard that still displays an old Radio Shack sign, new products and technologies are being imagined, designed, and built daily - from cutting edge devices for Alzheimer’s patients to futuristic defense technologies. 

“There is always something buzzing here,” said CEO Anita Baranowski. Along with her husband Rob, who serves as president and lead design engineer, the two run Left Coast Engineering, an electronics product design firm that creates everything electronics including software, software interfaces, and controls as well as electronics equipment, apps, and electronics encasements.

Rob and Anita began their business journey 20 years ago when they both worked for Six Flags Theme Parks in New Jersey. Rob was a software developer and Anita worked as a PR manager. Together, they saw an opportunity. “Theme parks are all about guest services,” said Rob, who combined his technology background with Anita’s public relations expertise to create the first theme park navigation and scheduling app, which at the time was used on PDA devices. “It seemed like the next step in guest services, to create guided tours via wireless PDA.” This app gave users the ability to get fast passes on rides, wait time information, and so much more.

This design and development, along with various consulting projects on the side, investments from friends, family, and TCA (Tech Coast Angels), helped them segue into Left Coast Engineering.

They currently employ nearly 20 full and part-time employees, interns, and contractors who work on projects big and small. Any type of project idea is welcome at Left Coast Engineering, “We work with large companies and individuals. We are approached by people with ideas all the time and are happy to help out,” Rob said.

Rob explained that many clients walk in with an idea but not the know-how to complete it. He and his team work with the client to understand the idea from all angles. Together they dig into the requirements that include the design flow, user requirements, the look, feel, and size of the product, storage, care of the product, and so on.

“We help them understand all the aspects that go into design. Once we understand how it is used and what it needs to do, that’s when the product design comes in and with our experiences, we can put a product into place that fills those requirements.”

In addition to helping clients build their products, Anita and Rob also help them navigate the way they bring their products to market. Part of the success of Left Coast Engineering stems from the couple’s patent on their theme park app, which they have retained ownership of.  From their own experience, they help their clients understand the importance of patent protection and the process for securing a patent. Finally, the Baranowski’s guide their clients through the many aspects of marketing their product and how to bring it to market successfully through social media and various marketing outlets.

Left Coast Engineering has designed and developed more than 150 new products which are all cutting-edge technologies in use and concept. “Sometimes these products are five-to-seven years ahead of their time,” said Anita.

Because of the sensitivity and confidentiality of the designs and technology infringement, Rob and Anita can’t discuss many of their product designs or clients openly, but did say they often work with the U.S. Department of Defense and feel it’s a great opportunity because, as Rob said, “We really get to push technology here. We enjoy working on government projects because there is a lot of cool stuff that they need and they need it to be successful.”

One product design they are very happy to talk about is a recent project they have been working on with a company called NeuroEm Therapeutics Inc., based out of Phoenix, Arizona. Together, they have developed the MemorEM™, a head device that uses electromagnetic waves to treat patients with Alzheimer ’s disease (AD). With the assistance of a caregiver, users wear the head cap during one-hour treatments twice a day. Left Coast Engineering designed the head cap, cable harness, and the control box that is worn on the arm. The clinical trials were conducted through the Byrd Alzheimer’s Center and Research Institute at the University of South Florida and the device is having a direct impact on the AD process as treatments are showing preventative and reversed memory impairment in the trials.

For Rob, building this product has been a highlight in his career simply because of its impact on the lives of its users. “We are actually helping people in a life battle.”

While Left Coast Engineering works with companies throughout the US, Escondido is where they chose to open shop because it is such a central location for invention. The 15 freeway and the 78 corridor give vendors and customers easy access to their shop, especially when they are coming from Riverside, LA, and Orange Counties. Plus, Escondido’s Grand Avenue offers so many restaurants and cafés for meetings outside the office. “We love to bring our customers and vendors to lunch because Escondido has a lot of unique restaurants. We actually have a customer who likes to come to our location so we can eat on Grand Avenue,” said Greg.

Anita and Rob both agree that it’s cool that they are in the old Escondido Radio Shack building. Anita joked that she might put up a battery kiosk soon because so many people still come in asking for batteries. Although the sign outside is temporary, they do hope to keep it as a memorial of the once-great electronics outlet, and they do have some old Radio Shack items they keep around as their mini-museum tribute to the store.

Being in the building has its pluses too. Anita said some of the benefits are that it has allowed them to add many more capabilities in their R&D technology labs. “For instance, this building is well-suited to our recent additions of a temperature chamber, an RF screen room (that filters out interfering signals like cellular and Wi-Fi (for testing purposes), and 3D printing.”

They felt like the move to this new location was easy in part because the City of Escondido is such a supportive community when it comes to local businesses and managing their needs. “Every encounter we have had with business management has been good,”  Rob said.

“It is a priority in Escondido to help businesses stay in Escondido,” said Jay Petrek, Assistant City Manager for the City of Escondido. “When businesses outgrow their buildings, we make every effort to make their move a seamless transition. It is also great to see that new businesses can retrofit old buildings to meet their needs. The Radio Shack building is a well-known spot in our town and knowing a technology company is making use of it is great for our community.” 

Anita and Rob are happy to stay in Escondido. Like this ever-growing city they enjoy the excitement of creating new and innovative products here. “You never know what the day is going to bring,” Anita said. And Rob added, “We could do this for 100 years and never get tired of it.”

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