AMHERST, N.Y. (WKBW) — Lunchtime now looks different for some students in the Sweet Home Central School District in Amherst. Elementary children now eat in their classrooms instead of the cafeteria.
But not all parents are happy with this change.
“We do have a space crunch. We have increased enrollment — increased the amount of staff,” explained Sweet Home Central School District Superintendent Michael Ginestre.
Ginestre tells 7 News the district is simply running out of space as enrollment continues to climb.
That's why elementary cafeterias at Willow Ridge, Heritage Heights, Maplemere, and Glendale are now being used for other programs.
“Like here at Glendale, we're using the cafeteria for special programs, services, OT, PT speech, and we have classrooms that were old storage areas that were off the cafeteria now that we're using as students spaces as well, so it's really more of a spacing issue,” replied Ginestre.
Students started eating lunch in their classrooms during COVID. That's when the superintendent says the district created smaller class sizes and hired 40 new staffers.
Glendale also has more students because the district received grants to go from half-day to full-day pre-k. Two sections were added in part of the school building for Universal Pre-K.
But some parents, who reached out to 7 News, say their children are getting "cold" food because it's no longer cooked in the cafeteria and they miss "socializing" during meals.
“And then they started saying that the food that they were getting was cold and like, just not very good,” commented Bob, parent. “It's definitely — definitely a part of the experience of school being in the cafeteria. That's the main reason or that's one of the primary reasons other than, you know, the food being cold.”
The Sweet Home School parent only wanted to be identified as Bob. He has three children at Maplemere Elementary.
“As a parent, why is this upsetting to you?” Buckley asked.
“We don't think the food would be cold if they're in the actual cafeteria and it's not being — shipped over from a central place that makes the food and then — it's just been shuffled over to the school at lunchtime,” responded Bob.
"So we're very confident in the quality of the food that's been served to our students because of all the checks that are in place,” noted Ginestre.
The school parent was also critical of the district hiring more staffers without proper space.
“When you hire a whole bunch of new people, you should at least have some space that you wanted to use for those new people without impacting the cafeteria food,” the parent stated.
The superintendent says a building committee is discussing ways to improve the student experience, but as far as a return to cafeterias, that decision has not been made.
“As far as coming back to the cafeteria, we're exploring those ideas and those options every day, but every decision has an impact and so it could result in an increase in class sizes or you know, we don't want to go down this road, but teachers being forced to be mobile and going from class to class as well, so any decision we have there will be repercussions for it,” Ginestre described.
