Some may reminisce on high school as “the best four years of your life!”

One thing that may not be missed is the infamous school lunch.

Picture the flimsy paper tray littered with gray meat, a soggy vegetable and dry sandpaper disguised as bread. It’s notoriously gross, and similarly to prison food the reputation precedes it. However; does school lunch deserve to be so tediously regulated compared to other aspects of public education?

Absolutely not.

In the U.S, 27 million children eat lunch at school annually. And while some may be focused on the number of students, the more pressing issue is how much money this costs.

The National School Lunch Program spends $13.6 billion dollars simply producing low-cost and free meals for private and public schools.

Now in comparison to the annual budget of K-12 education, at $308 billion, this meek number pales in comparison. But money in schools comes and goes quickly.

District spending fluctuates on an annual basis, but its safe to say that in-class instruction receives the most funds. Students spend the most time in classrooms, so the fact that it receives on average 70-80% of the districts budget is perfectly reasonable.

In the Chandler Unified School District, high school students eat lunch in a quick 30 minutes. There should not be large funds derived from vital departments to waste on students that ignore and trash the food on their plates.

School lunch does not receive a large percentage of the budget; but compared to its the lunch time and ranked importance, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In school cafeterias, a lot of food is wasted. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act may have had good intentions, but that doesn’t mean that it’s effective. CBS reported that when the USDA opted for a higher content of fruits and vegetables on students’ plates; food waste increased by 56%.  Food is hard to sell when it’s inexpensive, healthy, and desirable.

It’s pretty idealistic to assume that districts can cooperate with local farms to produce healthy and delicious food that all students will love.

Both small businesses and students benefit from this…so, what’s the problem?

Food doesn’t come cheap. In fact, the reason that schools receive the majority of their products at such a low price are the cooperations set in place between agribusiness and the government. Dairy and meat products provide quick calories and store fat and energy longer; therefore, they are the basis for most school lunches. Not to mention that the USDA is really searching for a pocket-friendly alternative.

Although it may be nice to incorporate more fruits and veggies into student meals, they perish quickly and must be served in preservatives or out of the freezer.

School lunch is good enough as it is because mushy vegetables don’t have the same appeal as a slice of pizza.

 After hours of tedious work and drawn out lectures you hear the unmistakable ringing of the school bell. You realize it’s lunch time, quickly exit your class, and rush to refuel; but when you see what’s on your plate, you’re just as disappointed as you were with the schoolwork on your table.

This has become the problem with CUSD lunch, as food quality and proportions have been on a steady decrease in previous years.

The increasing disapproval for school lunch began with the removal of highly coveted Chick-Fil-A and Church’s Chicken from the schools weekly menu. While controversial, this decision was understandable, as changes stemmed from new standards aiming to improve the healthiness of school lunch. However, the most recent changes to the school lunch have left students unhappy to say the least.

“I used to eat lunch here [Perry] but i started packing my lunch a lot this year just because everything taste fake now”, stated junior Jalen Williams. This opinion is definitely not a rare occurrence, with students around campus becoming increasingly synonymous with their criticism of subpar meals.

In the the districts defense, certain aspects of change have been in attempt to promote a more healthy meal for students. However, healthy food shouldn’t equate to nasty food.

To make matters worse, the cost of these items have failed to follow suit with prices staying the same and even rising a dollar in certain cases. Students are stuck with dwindling proportions and continue to be duped everytime they wait in the lunch line. “Meals” are far from satisfying and force students into undesired purchases.

For instance, students are required fruit or natural juice with every meal. However, these additions often find their home in the nearest trash can, untouched by students who were forced to take an item they never wanted.

The solution isn’t to stockpile unwanted foods but to use valued, nutritional ingredients in meals students enjoy.

While some may question why the content of lunch deserves attention, the reason for this is behind the understated value of nutritious meals. Research done by the Nutritional Policy Institute showed that nutritional meals could increase students test scores by a 4% average, a significant boost that can’t go unnoticed.

And although the food isn’t inexplicably bad, the district is yet to publicly explain why these changes occurred. For instance, students who take a trip to the school lunch menu on the CUSD nutrition website page will be surprised to find a monthly meal schedule that the cite claims to have.

The reason for this is because it doesn’t exist.

The lack of transparency from the district only contributes to student rage:and when you pair this with the steadily decreasing quality of the food they eat everyday, it’s not too hard to see why.