Oct. 12, 2026 by Carlin Phillips (‘27)
When students walk into the cafeteria each day for lunch, they see countless options for food. The pizza, the salad bar, the vegan options, and the hot lunches. But what about the people behind the lunches?
The staff that welcome each student with a smiling face. The people who work every day preparing countless different options for students to make sure everyone is getting not only delicious food, but nutritious food too. I had the pleasure of talking to three of our wonderful lunch staff, Amanda, Debbie, and Megan, and learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes of the Saratoga High lunches, and how deeply they care about the food they make as well as the children they make it for.
The lunch staff start their day each morning at 6:45. Coming in early to turn their equipment on and order everything they need for lunch. Whether that be food, snacks, ice cream, drinks, silverware, they take care of all of it.
Self-funded by the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), as well as any funds provided by the state, our lunch staff work hand in hand to ensure students have healthy lunches to eat every day.
When they begin to cook at 8:00 am, they don’t stop until 1:00 pm. Having to make not only breakfast but lunch too, they cook all four lunches, five hours each day.
There are some lunches that sell, and there are some that don’t. Our lunch staff work hard to make sure they are providing lunches that they know their students will eat, while also providing them with all the food groups they need.
“You guys have specific wants, and we try to accommodate you as best as possible with whatever we can. Changing some minor things here and there, finding the best way to do things.” says Megan Careney, Culinary Manager for the district, and staff of Saratoga Springs High School for 9 years. “We know your favorites and we try to bring that in”.
When providing lunches for 1,400 kids each day, you need to make sure they are healthy. Using a Snack Tracker, our lunchroom staff scan every snack they bring in to make sure it is healthy for the student. “What you guys get, you cannot buy at Walmart. It’s all specifically designed and created for school programs. It’s lower sodium, it’s lower in sugar, it’s lower in fats” says Megan.
When trying to find healthy but tasty alternatives to household favorites, you can get some products that aren’t able to be used. If staff buy a snack, it may not be healthy enough to sell. Some snacks will be there one week and not another, because they don’t reorder them.
Our lunch staff pay close attention to ensure that students will eat the lunches they provide. And when they don’t, they fill up fifteen 5-gallon buckets per week with the excess food and give it to the biology teachers to provide compost, “The tops of bell peppers that we don’t use, or produce that goes bad because sometimes we don’t get to it, we give back to the school, and then they use it for composting.” says Amanda Kendall, Cook Manager of 6 years.
Questions now arise about the fan favorite homemade cookies or the now extra charge soup. The homemade cookies that were once sold every day of the school week, are now only sold on Fridays. And the soup, which used to be free, is now advertised as “$1.60 + tax for staff”, which yes, it may say the tax is going to the staff, every dollar earned on the soup is put right back into the system to fund the lunches.
But students don’t realize that these changes are being made for good reasons, “We were trying to figure out a way to best service all of you at one time,” says Megan. Sometimes, when staffing gets short, there must be some changes made to accommodate until positions get filled, “So as soon as we can and we’re able to, you may see them come back more than once a week”. It’s hard juggling a lot of things at once, especially when trying to run a big operation like school lunches, sometimes things need to be sacrificed to have other, more important, things.
“Everything we do is for you guys. We want you to get everything you can to eat. We want you to have something that looks good and tastes good. We just do it for you guys.” explains Megan. Our lunch staff come to work with the priority of providing for other people, working on not just lunches, but breakfast too. And it’s not just Megan, Amanda, and Debbie working in the kitchen, it’s the countless other staff members who are dedicated to our school and our students.