In the past three years, Mounds View had four lunch times for students, with the first lunch in the third period. However, many problems arose from this schedule. The students who had first lunch had to also be in a fourth hour class with second lunch. “So we had to match teachers together, and it ended up being the same teachers in the same blocks for the first couple of years we did it, and a lot of them got frustrated that they didn’t have more flexibility with their lunchtime,” said Associate Principal Benjamin Chiri. This complicated system created plenty of scheduling conflicts for students who had first lunch in third period along with a third or fourth lunch in fourth period. These issues are why the lunch schedule has changed back to three lunches this year.
Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, the school had three lunches. When the pandemic hit, they added another lunch to open up space for social distancing. Now, with COVID-19 no longer an issue and scheduling issues arising, the administration decided to condense it back to three.
Even when everyone’s schedule worked, lunches one and three split up class time. Now, only lunch two splits up a class, and teachers can easily switch lunches on days that they have an important activity such as a test or a lab. “Students have much more flexibility with their class scheduling, and teachers have more flexibility with their lunch schedule. So it’s a win-win in a lot of ways,” Chiri said.
Lunches are now organized by subject rather than individual teachers, which allows teachers to communicate within their department easier. “It’s a lot more simplified, and we’re also not tied to the kids having the third and fourth hour block,” Chiri said.
With fewer lunches, each one has more students. A primary concern for students after the switch was the crowding of the lunchroom and lunch line. On the first day of school, the line would not only reach the end of the hallway, but it wrapped around. However, after a couple of days, the lunch line moved much faster as the staff adjusted to the new system. Lunch staff reorganized the layout of the lines to make it more efficient. More self-service options are at the end so that kids are backed up waiting for lunch staff to serve them rather than crowding the area, and salad options are now in all three lines rather than just one, eliminating the need for students to navigate to other lines.
The pizza line and the Ala Carte are also switched because the nature of the lines worked better. Last year, the Ala Carte had no clear entrance and exit, causing confusion for students and staff as well as enabling some to get away with stealing food.
To deal with more people, the cafeteria has more lunch tables, and the staff lounge was repurposed so students can eat there. The staff lounge moved to the main office so that its old room could be repurposed to hold more lunch tables. The school plans on further developing the cafeteria and what used to be the staff lounge by adding new furniture and redesigning the layout. Along with other changes, the cafeteria can hold more people than before. “What feels like overcrowding is kind of more like students don’t want to sit close together,” Chiri said. “Yes, it feels crowded, but it’s not technically overcrowded, it’s within capacity, and there’s actually space that people probably don’t realize.”
The removal of lunch not only made all scheduling more flexible, it let staff figure out efficient ways to organize the cafeteria and lunch line flow. As the school year goes on, the cafeteria will keep adapting and get used to this change.