How Martin County School District found mealtime flexibility

At Jensen Beach High School in southeastern Florida, the cafeteria was busy enough with three scheduled lunch periods. But then the school district’s leadership told the foodservice team a huge change was coming: They would have to drop to only two lunches. The school’s block scheduling made the current lunch schedule disruptive to 50-minute classes. Students went to class for 20 minutes, and just as they were getting settled in, they’d head to lunch for a half hour. They’d then go back to finish the remaining 30 minutes of class. The only solution, as directed by district leadership, was to decrease to two 30-minute lunch periods, which would prevent the interruption of class. Read on to see how the foodservice team took that on.Photograph courtesy of Martin County School District