MIAMI (WSVN) - Middle school students in Miami-Dade got the chance to taste a host of different foods and vote on what they would like to see offered on the school menu.

Thirty students from Citrus Grove and Horace Mann Middle schools got the chance to try out the foods.

“When you give us what we want to see you’re going to get better results out of us,” said student Ayeisha Kirkland.

That’s exactly the philosophy behind Middle School Redesign. Miami-Dade Public Schools Office of Academics and Transformation have been working on the project for two years with the goal of hyper focusing on what middle school students say would make their learning environment the most ideal.

“Middle school students are going through more emotional and behavioral changes than any other time in their life, so the idea of Middle School Redesign is to go back to the roots of what middle school should be all about, focusing on the whole child,” said Ilia Molina, the executive director of the program.

And what the students like to eat is one of the project’s top priorities.

“It was just kind of fun to be able to pick what I want and know that at the end of the day, whatever I choose, they’re going to take my voice, and they’re going to use it towards what they’re going to implement,” Kirkland said.

Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was also on hand for the event.

“We wanted to hear from the students,” Carvalho said. “We wanted to redesign the middle school experience from the academic perspective — how they learn, how they’re taught — but also the environment and what they eat so to address the physical needs, as well as the social and emotional, side-by-side academic needs of kids.”

The students seem to enjoy having their voices heard.

“I think it’s very impactful that they’re asking us, because normally people don’t do that,” said student Natalie Lahera.

“When you go on to middle school, you’re preparing yourself to get into high school for that serious setting,” Kirkland said, “so I think the whole thought of Middle School Redesign, them thinking to get our opinion to make it better, I think that’s pretty creative and pretty smart.”

Middle School Redesign will launch in the fall in at least two public Miami-Dade middle schools.

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