Benefield: Petaluma student spurs solution to long lunch lines

Mom was right, there really is no such thing as a free lunch. There is always some cost, seen or unseen.

In the case made by Kenilworth Junior High eighth grader Preston Stewart, the cost of a free lunch provided for all students on campus is lines so long sometimes there is no time to eat.

Stewart said the situation on his campus got so bad last semester that kids were waiting in line through their entire (typically) 40-minute break, sometimes never reaching the order window. And some kids were so sick of the wait that they stopped trying.

“During lunch the lines would often be like really long for students and when they went to get food sometimes they would just be like ‘This line is too long,’ and they would not get in it,” he said.

Stewart successfully ran for student body president of the Petaluma school last fall in a campaign largely based on one promise: Do something about those lunch lines.

In doing so, he put a name and a face on a problem that’s not unique to Kenilworth.

Districts across Sonoma County, California and the nation, are wrestling with staffing shortages and supply chain issues. At the very same time, state and federal programs are requiring more meals be served to more kids.

And it’s not just the locals who staff lunch rooms who are in short supply.

There is a shortage of truck drivers and the food they haul. There are fewer warehouse workers to pull fewer food stuffs from increasingly bare shelves.

So yes, the lines were long, said Petaluma City Schools Superintendent Matthew Harris, who did a site visit and saw for himself in December.

But the district wasn’t ignoring the problem, he said.

“Our food service staff are working their tails off,” he said.

When Stewart felt his demands were not being heard by school and district officials, he took his campaign public. He wrote a letter to the editor of The Press Democrat.

“I am writing because no one in the Petaluma City Schools district seems to care about lunch issues at Kenilworth Junior High,” he wrote.

Months of trying to solve the problem had produced no results.

“All I received was a promise that things would be fixed by the first week after winter break. Nothing has changed,” he wrote.

The second semester started Jan. 3. The letter ran Jan. 21. An additional lunch line was opened 10 days later.

It’s been night and day, Stewart said.

“It’s going really smoothly,” he said. “The time has been reduced significantly of, you know, (students) getting their food in a timely manner.”

Stewart felt his letter spurred the change. But school officials say they have been working on the issue all along and that the factors that contributed to the slow service were beyond a quick fix.

And to be clear, the issue is not one unique to Kenilworth.

During the pandemic schools across California, and the nation, have been tasked with not one but many herculean jobs — educate kids, keep students and staff safe, and look out for mental health issues.

Figuring out how to safely feed kids who rely heavily on school meals is just one of them.

Almost overnight in the spring of 2020, schools went from serving hot lunches in the cafeteria to packing bag lunches to go when kids and teachers were no longer on campuses.

And the transition to grab and go meals was crucial: For millions of students in California, school is the sole place they can count on for a nutritious meal.

Then California became the first state in the nation to offer free breakfasts and lunches to all students, regardless of their family’s income status.

That change meant systems meant to serve six out of 10 students in the state had to be ready to serve 100% of students.

“It went from 400 (lunches) to 550 — those are very approximate numbers for Kenilworth,” Harris said. “That is an additional 150 meals a day you are producing when it goes (to) being food for everybody.”

The fact that California’s expanded program doesn’t officially begin until next fall, makes little difference. The feds had already approved the increased meal service through this school year because of the pandemic.

“I know the food service department had many challenges and this is not unique to Petaluma City Schools,” Harris said. “Supply chain issues with food, staffing issues districtwide, and around the state and the country I think. There are multiple factors at play.”

Those factors cropped up again this week.

An elementary school in the district had no food service staff member available to prepare and serve food. Staff had to call an audible.

“One of our staff had to go to an elementary school because they had nobody. We have four or five (food service employees), someone has to cover,” said Karla Conroy, an interim principal at Kenilworth who came aboard in January.

The fallout?

The extra lunch line that was added just two weeks ago has been temporarily shuttered, she said.

So school officials are asking for patience. Or at least understanding of what they are up against.

Stewart says they’d better not drag their feet again.

He’s a kid who doesn’t like to wait.

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.