About midway through the covid pandemic, Ipswich High School began offering free lunch to all students. This lunch policy is planned to continue until the end of the 2024-2025 school year. Because of this, we decided to conduct a survey to hear about how the students of IHS feel about the lunch that so many of us have been eating. First, the survey was designed with questions that minimize response bias and was sent to every student via mass email. The survey received 114 responses; of which 15.8% were freshmen, 38.6% were sophomores, 24.6% were juniors, and 21.1% were seniors.Additionally, 72.0% of the survey’s respondents claimed to eat school lunch a few times a week or more.
To start, there was a surprising amount of praise for some of the foods offered at the high school. When asked in a short answer question about their favorite food offered, the most common responses were the cheeseburger, chicken patty, and tacos. Along with this, when asked to rate how they feel about school lunch, 14.7% gave the food a 7 or an 8. The highest ranking food at the cafeteria is the tacos by a large margin, being marked as the favorite by 16.8% of respondents. One interestingly divisive response was the school pizza, which appeared near the top of both the favorite and least favorite food categories. After further investigation into this, it was discovered that the pizza offered on Fridays, which is much different than that served on regular school days, is much more preferred to the typical cheese pizza. The regular cheese pizza was described by students as “just ok” while the Friday only pizza received lots of praise.
Despite the amount of praise that can be given to school lunch, it is important to also consider the negative aspects of the experience. However, it should be noted that none of the blame should be put on the lunch staff who do not have control over how much money is allocated for them to work with. This fact is recognized by students, with one respondent writing, “give the lunch ladies and gentlemen better resources and upgrade the vendor”, and another adding, “I don’t blame lunch ladies at all”. In our survey, IHS students were very open to sharing their criticisms and concerns about what they are being served. One sore spot in particular is portion sizes. Multiple respondents mentioned how unhappy they were with the amount of food they were being served. 86.8% of 114 respondents indicated that they were typically not full after lunch. Another big issue for students is the quality of the food. One respondent says, “The sandwiches are dry and 90% bread, with peanut butter and fluff ones having one spoonful of fluff and peanut butter, spread on one edge to make it look like there’s actually stuff in it. Any vegetables served are soggy.” There are many other students that have similar stories.
When discussing the school lunch situation, it is important to think in terms of possibilities. Thankfully instead of simply recounting the bad experiences that they’ve had with our lunch, most students have shared what they think could be improved. One such suggestion about portion sizes was presented by a student, “On the day when the food is served, and there’s a bunch of leftovers, they can be served as free seconds. This minimizes food waste.” An additional suggestion about food quality is, “There should be options to buy higher quality lunch foods. I don’t want low quality food for free. I would rather pay more money for high quality food.” The students at IHS understand that the problems they face with school lunch don’t have to be permanent and can be fixed. They bring up ideas that they think could improve the quality and amounts of food served. The voices and opinions of these students are important to listen to and consider. They are the ones who are the most exposed to the problems and have to deal with them each day.
