Numbers of students at lunches get switched around

Jalyn Sneary

Students walk in and out of one of the lunch lines.

In order to make each of the four lunches have even numbers, the administrators have different factors to consider. There are different classes that have to have certain lunches. Administrator Eric Miller is one of the people who has to look at all the third block classes and decide what classes get what lunches.

“We try and even out the lunch shifts as best as possible. There are a few that have to eat at a certain lunch,” Miller said.

After the start of the new semester, staff noticed that lunch D was overcrowded compared to the other three lunches, and they knew they needed to make a change. The amount of students in lunch A was 382, lunch B was 488, lunch C was 483 and lunch D was 554.

“As the semester changed, we just said ‘Let’s just write it out and see if they are going to be even or not,’ because with different classes and kids changing at the semester, it could be close to being okay or it could be completely out of whack. It ended up being completely out of whack,” Miller said.

To fix this, they looked at changing the science class’ lunches, but then realized that they have to have either D or A lunch because they cannot leave in the middle of the block. The science classes can’t be A lunch because both A and B lunch alternate.

“Science has to be on the end, either the first or the last lunch because chemistry and physics and those science classes have labs, so you don’t want to be in the middle of a lab and break and go to lunch,” Miller said.

They ended up switching Fine Arts from D lunch to A, in turn making the lunches more even.

“So what that did was it evened up those numbers. So now, lunch A has 488, lunch B has 488, lunch C has 483 and lunch D has 448. They are really much closer now. It went from being like 200 off [to] 20 off,” Miller said.

According to Miller, everyone is happy because of the changes.

“There were times where in lunch D, kids did not have a seat to sit on. I mean, it was that crowded. Now you can see that everybody has a chair to sit in and it’s less rub. It’s just calmer and not as loud and the cafeteria staff is happy,” Miller said.