After a year-and-a-half, students and staff have returned to campus. Yet when the halls were always empty during remote learning, the kitchen was always open. 

Due to COVID-19, the kitchen staff worked their hardest throughout the 2020-2021 school year. 

Rosa Montes, a kitchen staff member, said, “I feel super good to be back and we are currently serving up to 1,000 kids per day.” 

She has worked at La Quinta High’s kitchen for around 15 years, so she’s used to the hustle around the cafeteria.

The staff members did not stop serving food during the summer either. 

If the staff chose to work for summer, they had to go to work outside to prepare and distribute food to parents picking up food for their kids. But every day was not easy.  

Virginia Andrade, the head of the kitchen staff, said, “It was a lot of work involved when we served the kids out on the curbside. It was very hot, but then they changed our times so it was more in the mornings from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Before it was from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Everybody did a good job [and my staff] got their work done.” 

The kitchen staff has overcome many obstacles, one of which is serving 1,200 kids on time.

“Before COVID-19, we used to serve between 850 to 900,” Andrade said. “Now we are serving roughly 1,000 to 1,200 students every day.” 

Just like the previous school year, school meals continue to be served at no cost to all students.  The United States Department of Agriculture extended its guidelines for school meal service for the entire 2021-2022 school year. 

Andrade, who has worked at LQHS for 30 years, has experienced workers come and go and has worked with many people who have different personalities and different stories. 

“I have to understand each and every one of them,” she said. 

Some things don’t always go their way, as everything in the kitchen has to be done on time every day. If one thing is late or not done by a certain time, it can throw everything off for the rest of the day.  

This starts with the vendors delivering the food on time so that they can prep the food to serve to students. 

“The hardest thing is making sure we have all the items ready to be served to the students and making sure we are ready and prepared to serve them on the time we are supposed to,” she said. 

Emily Sanchez-Diaz ‘22 has been getting lunch since her ninth-grade year. 

“I am the only one of my friends who gets the hot lunch,” said Sanchez-Diaz, “so I usually want to be in and out fast. The lines, this year, got so big. I’ve never had to wait this long for the school food. I know that it’s because of the new ‘everyone gets free lunch’ thing, but even so, everyone is crowding to get into one small door and I hate it.” 

Just like the previous school year, school meals continue to be served at no cost to all students.  The United States Department of Agriculture extended its guidelines for school meal service for the entire 2021-2022 school year. 

It seems that this may be the cause of the lines getting out of hand, according to students.

Sanchez said, “There are times when I go into the cafeteria and there are kids throwing food, cussing out the kitchen staff, and the staff running around trying to get the food in and out.” 

The kitchen staff members sometimes feel unappreciated at times due to students’ behavior.  

“Many times many staff members don’t show up for work and we have to serve no matter what happens and many students don’t appreciate that the food is there for them after all the hard work we did to put it in front of them,” Montes said. “There are kids who go in the kitchen and just throw food and are mean to the staff who are trying to do their job.”

Sometimes the cafeteria staff catches students throwing away full trays of untouched food. 

“Little do they know how much work we did to give them that tray full of food,” she said. 

The kitchen staff will always remain open. And the kitchen staff members will continue to serve their students hard no matter how hard it gets.