Today, we will be focusing on the opinions of those who enjoy, prepare, and control our school lunches. A big topic recently has been the school lunch serving size. Students and staff members alike have been seen grabbing two servings of lunch, which led us to investigate further. We wanted to get both the student’s and staff’s opinion on whether or not the school lunch is filling everyone, what opportunities there are to improve it, and do we have the facilities for such improvements.
The students of Ipswich High School have lots of varying opinions on the school served lunch. Some think it’s great, some eat it because they don’t pack their own lunches, and others fear it like it’s the plague. Senior Preston Hansen said: “ I do not like the serving sizes. I don’t think they are enough.” when asked if the serving sizes were satisfactory. He even claimed he couldn’t fuel his “academic endeavors.” Preston is among many students at Ipswich High who are spotting coming back for seconds, being forced to spend their own incomes on state provided meals. What’s even worse is the fact that students will often load their trays with unhealthy extras, such as the school famous “Chipwich.”
Our next step was the cafeteria. When speaking to Diana Comeau, the school’s head chef and nutrition expert, we gained lots of valuable information about what goes into deciding serving sizes. To our surprise, the administration has very little say in the portion sizes our school serves: “It’s not that we can’t give you a bigger serving; we have to go by the government guidelines.” She gave specific examples, explaining how it isn’t their fault that a serving of chicken nuggets includes only five, and that they are only following the directions on the box. Still feeling a little confused about who can really make a difference with our lunches, we organized a meeting with our principal, Jonathan Mitchell.
We brought up behind the scenes questions about our school’s lunch. Topics like budget and future plans, along with his personal opinions all came up during our interview: “The food services group is an independent company so they are not part of the school budget. While I am not totally familiar with the contract, typically food services agree to supply lunches for the school and a large part of their income is from state reimbursements beyond what they collect for the food they serve students. The state subsidizes school lunches.” Mr. Mitchell’s answer to our school budget left us with lots of further questions about what resources are available for our cafeteria. When asked about any future plans to improve the school lunch, Mr. Mitchell’s response was: “Not at this time,” making it clear that the administration has nothing lined up. Also, he made it a point to note the lack of money we have left to put towards our budget. He explained that since our lunches are provided by the state, it is being funded by tax dollars, meaning that an increase in our lunch budget would lead to an equal increase in taxes. This means influencing the school’s lunch budget is greater than the student body and requires action from a representative with higher authority.
By the end of our interviewing process we realized achieving greater portion sizes is a wild goose chase. Whether it be charging students for lunches or increasing our tax dollars we realized the government policies in place are inhibiting our ability to have a say in the sizing of our lunches. At each level of individual, whether it be a student, the school chef, or the principal everyone claims that the lunches are out of their control, and the fight for better lunches will need to be taken with a different approach in the future.