By contributing writers Anna Schroth (‘28) and Laina Chilcote (‘29)

Over the past few weeks, the lunch lines have been longer and slower than usual. You may have also noticed the small cafeteria line is closed as well as the snack shack. This is due to the cafeteria being short staffed. This issue has affected both the workers and the students.

On an average day, when the line is serving a popular meal like pizza, Denise Reals, a member of the lunch staff, said over 400 students get lunch. Freshman Damari Williams gets lunch almost every day. He says “[Getting lunch has been annoying because] it takes most of the lunch period to get my food and I have less time to eat.” Sophomore Moomen Alshayea also gets lunch pretty often and says he is frustrated by the current state of the line because people cut a lot. Junior Katherine Sherman gets lunch most days of the week and the recent lunch situation has been affecting her negatively as well. “I feel upset because I waste half my time in line and have less time to talk to my friends,” she said.

Another way the students are being affected, aside from the amount of time they have to wait in line, is that the crowd of students waiting takes up too much space in the cafeteria. Senior Zoe McCarthy said the wait time isn’t that bad because she just waits for the line to die down, however she gets annoyed by the line because it “gets in everyone’s way.” 

Reals has been working at Jamesville-Dewitt High School for five years and has been working in food services for 21 years. She says the cafeteria is short staffed because, “Nobody wants to work.” She says that due to the decrease in lunch staff, everyone has been forced to work a lot harder. Lunch server Marjee Carver says, “Two people who quit had just started in September.” Carver has also been working in the cafeteria at J-DHS for five years. She says, “We can’t even go to the bathroom sometimes because it’s so busy.” They ask everyone to please be patient with the lunch staff because this situation is frustrating for them as well.

Throughout all of this chaos, the Board of Education has developed a plan, according to Principal Gregory Lawson. He says the board meets every two weeks which has elongated the re-staffing process because that is when they discuss the new hires. He also says that new hires have to go through a screening process which is can be very tedious.

Another factor that has made this process more difficult is the hourly pay. Reals and Carver said the cafeteria staff is working at about $15 to $17 an hour; this was confirmed by Lawson. This is equivalent to or less than the amount that an average high school student makes at their after school job.

Students have also been complaining that the snack line is closed. This decision was made by the board to prioritize children getting their meals over snacks. Dr. Lawson said he and  Superintendent Darcy Woodcock realized that the last student to get their lunch had only 10 minutes to eat after sitting down. This situation has gotten so bad that Dr. Lawson had offered to help with the lines himself, but luckily it didn’t come to that.