By JONATHON TOLBERT

The Mirror reporter

There have been whispers in the hallways of Stevens Point Area High School (SPASH) claiming that at one point, the school used to serve Little Caesar’s and Subway.

The big questions students have is if SPASH did, why did they stop and why can’t they just do it again?

Principal Jon Vollendorf said, “When I started teaching here in the mid 90’s, a different day of the week we sold a different chain food. Rocky’s had a day, Subway had a day, and Little Caesar’s had a day which, while you know that was popular with the students, wasn’t as healthy and it was also a money drain for students and the school.”

A change was needed.

Credit, said Vollendorf, “should be given to assistant superintendent Tom Owens who, with the help of our food services director, really led some of these changes.”

“Kids were a little disappointed at first but then we started offering fresh pizzas,” said Lori Epstein, District Food Service Manager.

If the school had never phased out chain restaurants, the lunch room would not look like it does today. There would be no school fresh pizza, no handmade subs and no new a la cart room.

An increase in the number of students taking breakfast has occurred. “Currently SPASH is serving over 200 reimbursable [free or reduced] breakfasts, that number has seen an increase in recent years,” add Epstein.

Some other changes that students may take for granted is the fact that it use to take around 30 minutes for all of the students to be served lunch but now it only takes ten minutes. The problem the lunch room now faces is a need for more space to accommodate all of the students eating lunch at SPASH.