Starving Students Of Powell

By: Pari Patel

Editor: Breanna Naysmith

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Food. We all need it, but do we enjoy eating it? It seems that in every movie we watch, school lunches are inedible and not liked by students. Is this applicable to the students of Powell, or just an overused stereotype? My goal was to answer this ongoing question for you.

As a way to get an accurate representation of the school, I created a survey that could be completed anonymously if preferred, to guarantee honest feedback. The questions asked for personal opinions on school lunch and breakfast as well as if you even choose to eat it or not. For example, some questions were, “Do you enjoy breakfast and/or lunch?” and, “Rate the school’s overall food choices and quality on a scale of 0 to 10.” From this survey, I have concluded that the starving students of Powell High School dislike school meals. The data collected shows that some students do eat school meals, but do not enjoy them. Others don’t even eat school lunch because they detest it so much. The ratings of the food on a scale of 0 to 10 mostly ranged between 0 and 4, meaning that most students rated school meals as downright disgusting. This shows that according to the students of Powell, school meals are not appetizing and aren’t enjoyable. This data was very disappointing as lunches and breakfasts provided by the school should be enjoyable.

As a new student to Powell High School, and Knox County Schools in general, I was extremely disappointed about school lunch. I don’t eat breakfast at school, but every day I go through the lunch line. I have had lunch here a total of seven times. Five out of those seven days, I have gotten an Uncrustable, string cheese, and crackers. Out of those three things though, I only ate the string cheese and crackers. On the 6th day of school, I was excited because there was a cheese pizza, not just pepperoni. When I got to my table, I had taken a bite and realized it was cold and chewy. Nobody likes a chewy pizza, especially me.

My experience with Powell High School’s lunch had been nothing but negative, unfortunately. However, there is a way to fix this problem, as well as fix the way students view school meals. For starters, a big thing to do is accommodate to what the students want. Myself and others have shown their concern in lunch options. There is obviously either not enough, or just not enough for people on certain diets. Either way, nicer options would definitely be something that would make students see lunch in a different way. Another thing would be the quality of food. For example, my chewy cheese pizza. Not only was it chewy, but it also wasn’t good in general. It would only take a little more effort to keep hot foods warm and soft, instead of cooked but cold. If both of these advances were to take place, I feel that lunch wouldn’t be a dreading time for me and my peers.

As I wrote this article paragraph by paragraph, I had a sudden realization; I was a starving student of Powell. It was just a catchy title at first, I didn’t know it would come to be the truth. The information I have attained from the students of Powell, as well as my personal experiences, concludes that Powell High School needs to improve their meals. This shows that the stereotype of bad lunch and breakfast that we always see in movies is most definitely applicable to our school. As shown in the second paragraph, over 50 percent of students said they dislike school meals and rated the school’s food very low. The average of ratings being about 2.76. My personal rating for school meals would be about 3. This is because although school lunch might be edible, it’s undoubtedly unappealing. I am hoping by writing this article, the school can see their flaws and from here on improve.