AHS cafeteria staff introduced a new lunch menu for the 2025-26 school year, including honey sriracha chicken sandwiches, bacon and onion ring burgers, and a build-your-own salad bar. Lunch lines nearly doubled as students raced to try the new entrees.
FUSD’s Child Nutrition Service (CNS) Manager, Matteo Leon Valencia, pioneered this initiative, sharing, “[The cafeteria staff and I] noticed that students were kind of bored of eating the same things every day. There wasn’t really anything exciting, but when we did an entree, those were the first things to leave. I spoke to my director and asked him if it was possible to revamp the menu with more fresh items and fewer packaged things.”
Students have received the new menu fairly positively, excited to have been presented with many options. Anika Srivastava (11) said, “I like the quality a lot better. It doesn’t fit that stereotype of a typical school lunch—it tastes like actual food!” Somil Sorade (11) echoed, “I feel like it’s such a big improvement. I went from having the same chicken sandwich every day to getting to change it up.”
A fresh and hot burger, complete with bacon bits and onion rings. The menu has introduced a variety of new items which look and taste appetizing to students (Photo Credit: Royden Liang (11)).
Part of the shift toward higher quality ingredients was the cafeteria staff’s belief that students appreciate varied and nutritious school food, so they would be immediately receptive to the change. Valencia said, “I told my director, my supervisor, that I could guarantee that within the first few weeks, over one thousand students would check out school lunch. We hit that mark in the first four days.”
Staff considered student input before the menu was officially implemented. Annie Zhu (11) said, “Last year, they did a little survey where we got to try out samples of potential future lunches—I really, really liked it, so I voted that we should have it. I’m really glad I did because the food is so good. It tastes like restaurant food.”
With the popularity of the new school lunches arises a different issue-an ever-growing lunch line. While waiting in the queue, Niyati Yalamati (11) said, “I feel like last year’s lunch line worked fine. We all bunched in a group, and it went fast. It’s been ten minutes, and I’m still in the line.”
Inchara Baikady (11) said, “I feel like they should have two lines and two entrances. This just isn’t working out —it doesn’t feel like people are actually getting their school lunches.”
Kritika Sarkar (11) agreed, “I’ve never seen the line ever extend past the blue overhead, and now it’s all the way in the rotunda. Yesterday, I got here pretty early but had like five minutes to eat my lunch.”
As of Tuesday, September 23, administrators amended line procedure, as per student request. Principal Sharma said, “We have asked CNS to provide two additional point-of-service stations (scanners) to open two additional serving sAHS rolls out a brand new lunch menupots. Each window will focus on a popular item, like pizza or burgers. We have already ordered stanchions and are finalizing the setup.”
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