The Wonder Women: The lunch ladies go though much preparation before serving lunch

The seemingly 20-foot line stretched to the cafeteria entrance doors as students waited for their hard-earned chocolate cake, pizza slice or dumplings. On the other side of the counter, food service assistant Norrol Smith hovered above the steam wells, quickly scooping fried rice into paper boats as students picked them up and placed them on their trays.

“I’ve got my nose in a steam well, trying to dish out food as fast as I can,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of times I don’t get to say ‘Hi’ to some people or see them, even. It can be very hectic.”

Two days earlier, head of the kitchen bakery Kristina Santa Maria, converted a one-cake recipe provided by the school district to make five chocolate cakes. Combining the ingredients that kitchen manager Connie Sprague-Stiers had ordered a week earlier, Santa Maria made the batter and baked them for an hour. 

After making the frosting the next day, she spent two hours frosting and cutting the cakes — the whole process spanning three days — for what she and her coworkers call “cake week.”

But the lunch ladies don’t only prepare, clean and cook. All seven of them are friendly faces to the students every day, despite challenges like late deliveries or an understaffed lunchroom compared to previous years.

Many of the students favor certain check-out lines after connecting with a familiar lunch lady.

Sophomore Ella Lewis encourages Santa Maria by telling her she’s doing a great job, and junior Militza Almoney calls Sprague-Stiers her “lunch lady friend.” 

Sophomore Christian Tippie exchanges conversations with Smith about her kids or their plans for the weekend.

“These ladies are positive every time I see them,” Tippie said. “They’re always smiling or laughing or something. Seeing that, it brightens up my day a little bit.”

However, students often blame the lunch ladies when a food item they want is out of stock, according to Almoney, due to delivery issues. In several instances where deliveries from Pizza Hut had been late, the lunch ladies served their backup pizza, kept in their freezer known as “Big Charlie.” But, according to Sprague-Stiers, students don’t usually like the backup pizza as much.

“It’s completely out of my control, where something will happen on [Pizza Hut’s] end, where they don’t get a dough delivery, and if they don’t get a dough delivery, we won’t get pizza at all,” Sprague-Stiers said.

After beginning the day at 6:30 a.m., the lunch ladies stay until 2 p.m. to finish their duties. Sprague-Stiers records money deposits and how much food was served and left over. Smith puts away the leftover food and cleans the steam wells. Joanna Clark, head of the salad department, wipes down the registers while they all pitch in to wash the dishes.

“We’re all cross-trained so we can do everything in the kitchen,” Sprague-Stiers said. “So if somebody’s not here, somebody else can go over to another department and help out.”

There were 12 people on SM East’s kitchen staff when Smith started working here nine years ago. After COVID-19, their numbers decreased dramatically, making it necessary for the pizza to become self-serviced and have less lunch ladies supervising areas.

As a big help, the custodians work closely with them, whether the oven has broken down, there’s a spill in the lunchroom or they need to clean up in between lunches.

“I came to the school district with the mentality that a nice, clean, fixed environment is the best environment for teachers to teach in and students to learn in,” Custodial-Building Manager Chris Garrett said.

It’s most challenging for Smith and Sprague-Stiers to determine how much food to make between lunches, taking into account many factors, such as students’ preferences that lead to leftover food or not enough.

After first and second lunch, head cook Anna Paredes takes inventory of the remaining food, ensuring each lunch is offered with similar amounts of the same items.

“If we have to, we’ll cook in between lines,” Sprague-Stiers said. “We’ll grab more of a product out, and make sure it’s ready for the other [lunch]. So we have to do it in a hustle, but we can do it.”

Having been at SM East for two years, Sprague-Stiers has become familiar with students’ preferences. She’s learned to expect student orders from knowing a student will get a cherry lemonade with a chocolate cookie to nicknaming another student “randomized guy,” because he would tell her to randomize whatever beverage or snack she gave him.

“We get the kids when they’re at the happiest of the day,” Sprague-Stiers said. “You know, everybody’s happy to go to lunch. It’s a fun time. It’s their favorite subject.”