Junior Alex Vo plays a game of chance every day. Every time he walks in through Legacy’s doors he never knows if lunchtime will provide a period of satisfaction or of disappointment.
Vo and hundreds of Legacy High School students purchase their lunch from the cafeteria every day. With this, lunch food has become shrouded in infamy, sometimes becoming synonymous with slop. Though school lunches have been given a bad reputation, Vo himself hasn’t always had a problem with school food. Vo attended a private school for five years, and he says lunch there was a completely different animal.
“Lunch usually consisted of fast food catered in every day,” Vo said. “My personal favorites were Dominos and Sonic.”
Attending a private school for so long with those kind of accommodations can certainly alter expectations. Vo himself admits that after making the switch to public school, he immediately developed multiple problems with his lunch.
“I began to wish that I had senior release, so I could keep getting my fast food,” Vo said. “But really, I just want to have confidence in what I eat.”
That responsibility of instilling confidence falls onto the Student Nutrition Department and Sondra Thomas, the assistant director of business operations. Ms. Thomas admits that sometimes this responsibility can be complicated and not so straight-forward.
“It’s a challenge,” Ms. Thomas said. “We make changes every semester, review our menu [and] we get feedback, [so] I believe we do all we can.”
For many students like Vo, these changes are not visible enough and school lunches require further improvement to reach a satisfactory level.
“I think they need to do more,” Vo said. “I would really like to see more fresh ingredients, so I don’t have to be careful of what I choose to eat.”
But according to Ms. Thomas, steps have already been taken to meet these aspirations of a freshly prepared school lunch.
“I think it’s something we have already taken on,” Ms. Thomas said. “In the last two years, we have gone to a lot more fresh products.”
In those two years, the district contracted a local vendor to produce the fruits and vegetables that go into student meals. In addition, multiple pieces of machinery and equipment were bought so MISD could take control of a larger portion of food production. Still, Ms. Thomas admits areas of improvement will always exist and so will obstacles. Perhaps, the most infamous challenge that public school districts face deals with money.
“When you think of school districts, you think of classrooms and taxes,” Ms. Thomas said. “But student nutrition is totally self-funded.”
In fact, all of the department’s funds come from sales and refurbishments from the state. This can prove challenging in coming up with sufficient money to fund the department’s numerous programs. However, Ms. Thomas feels there are greater obstacles at hand.
“Even though money is an obstacle, if we are smart about how we use it, then it shouldn’t be a real big problem,” Ms. Thomas said. “I think a bigger challenge is making food taste good when there is tighter and tighter government regulation.”
One of the biggest piece of regulation takes the form of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. This action set stricter nutritional standards for lunches provided by public schools. While she admits regulation has useful intentions, Ms. Thomas believes it has made it more difficult to produce appealing food. With the introduction of complete cafeteria menus and a summer feeding program, Ms. Thomas believes the Student Nutrition Department continues to take steps in the right direction.
“We know it’s tough eating at school, and we want you to have a nutritious lunch,” Ms. Thomas said. “Lunch time is the time to let your hair down and relax.”
