Have you ever complained that your school lunch was not enough? Maybe it was too small, maybe it was just not the food that you really wanted?
When Illinois public schools were shut down for Covid-19, the school lunch format was changed.
Instead of having multiple options for lunch, schools chose to offer one free meal to ensure that every student could have a safe, healthy option for lunch.
But now the public health Emergency declaration is over, and students are back in school full time.
Yet, school lunches are still the same singular option and students are back to paying full price.
Why is this?
Students at EHS have expressed concerns about the school lunches and the current format.
In a popular Instagram account
One food that receives frequent rave reviews from EHS students is orange chicken.
In a recent survey about this orange chicken, several EHS students expressed why they thought it was one of the EHS kitchen’s specialty dishes.
“It tastes like the only food that the cafeteria workers actually make and or reheat,” said Senior Skyler Lewis.
Perhaps the real issue isn’t with the kitchen but rather with the number of resources that the kitchen has to make lunches for over 2400 students.
Another EHS senior brings up this side of the argument.
“Orange chicken reminds people that the kitchen can make good food when given the resources to do so,” said Senior David Geldmacher.
Maybe the school is at fault here or maybe the kitchen staff is. Regardless of what people think needs to be done, what is obvious is that a change needs to be made.
Whether that’s more orange chicken days as several students advocated for in the survey or perhaps just a little more money that needs to be put into the food budget each year, a change does need to be made, hopefully sooner rather than later.