Colton, CA— After Colton High went through the first full week of school, students had a lot to say about switching to a single lunch schedule; but it wasn’t only the students that had opinions on the subject. 

The parents of CHS students had a variety of complaints explaining how the lunch time needed to be extended from 30 minutes to 45 minutes so every student could eat. 

“As someone who works in nutrition services for another district that did this, yes this does not work,” said parent Rosa Booth. “They still only have 30 minutes to eat and the time should actually be extended to 45 minutes. If they had 45, ALL students could be served and have time to eat.”

Parents also discussed how students not only needed the time, but the space and opportunity to eat food.

Colton High has responded to some of these demands by expanding the lunch area to the north side of the library and the grass area in front of the band building. They have also added more benches by the library area and added two more kiosks for students to receive lunch in a timely manner.

However, many students and parents are not satisfied with the changes. 

“I literally do not like it, I’d rather have second lunch again, but like I have all my friends together,” says Camila Amarillas, a sophomore at Colton High.

“CHS wasn’t prepared for this change for the 23-24 school year,” said parent Lupe Ayala. “There’s not enough seats or shade. This was not well thought out. I bet the other school that was visited had a bigger area for the kids and they were more efficient with distributing the food.”

While parents and students have taken to social media to complain about the change to the schedule, they have not voiced many of those complaints to the school administration directly. Principal John Abbott indicated that only a few complaints had been fielded by his team officially.

And while there were indications on Facebook groups like “You Know You’re From Colton If” that parents planned on protesting the lunch policy at the Aug. 17 school board meeting, there was no public comment made on the subject.