Last month, I was invited to a meeting with Lincoln Park administration, Aramark representatives and two other Lincoln Park students. The meeting’s objective was to improve Lincoln Park’s lunches, and ironically enough, my last editorial was about the “quality” of Lincoln Park’s lunches. While some aspects of lunch will be looking up, others may still not be up to par, at least in my opinion.     

            It seems like there is a wrap every day because technically, there is. When a wrap is made and it doesn’t sell out on the first day, it will be sold every day after that until, I assume, all the wraps are gone. Also, there apparently was never bacon in the macaroni and cheese. What was it then? As I was told, it was the baked cheese on top of the macaroni after it comes out of the oven. But I re-interviewed some students about the mac and cheese, and those students, and Mrs. Manning, swear that it was bacon, and not baked cheese.

            Then there are the smaller portions. I was told that Aramark bought new, more price-cautious, containers for the food. They are the same size as the old containers but they are built a bit different. The food has to become more compact in the container, so it looks like there is less. It’s an illusion.   

            This, however, does not solve the problem that some students are buying two lunches a day to fill their stomachs. One teacher even said they are serving us elementary school-sized portions. The reason the lunches are a certain size is because all schools are only allowed to have a certain amount of calories during lunch. That’s why we don’t have the good French bread pizzas anymore. The recipe had too many calories, and as soon as there is a recipe redo, the pizzas will be back.

            One of the students at the meeting brought up an interesting point about Lincoln Park’s caloric intake. The students at Lincoln Park are more active than an average high school student. Lincoln Park is a performing arts school. We do more than any other high school kid I’ve met. So why does Lincoln Park have to follow the same guidelines as other schools when we are more active and burn way more calories than any other high school? I’m not 100 percent sure; I didn’t really get an answer.

            Despite the fact that some things aren’t going to change about lunch, there are several things that are going to improve, according to Aramark representatives. We’re getting a new cookie in May, a chocolate, blue M&M, marshmallow, cookie. The recipe was created by a little girl in the Make-A-Wish program. The fruit cups are coming back, with the new addition of cottage cheese and there won’t be a lack of Lincoln Park’s favorite dressing. “You guys are the ranch dressing generation,” Chef Mike told us.

            With anticipation, I’m waiting to see the new additions to the menu that were discussed in the meeting, like a taco and steak salad. I also hope to see the stir-fry. As I heard, look for these things in May, when vegetables come back into season.

            Hopefully everything discussed in this meeting will help to improve lunch and make the students happy. 

–Amber Christian

–Amber Christian

Senior year of high school and applications go hand-in-hand, whether it be for college or scholarships. Most of the applications look the same: name, high school, intended major. Filling in the blanks has become second nature to most seniors. But for Lincoln Park seniors, there’s one blank our pens hover over. 

That blank would be class rank. I’ve had several discussions with teachers and students about why Lincoln Park doesn’t have class rank. I’ve heard several different reasons as well. One reason I heard was that Lincoln Park doesn’t want to promote competition between students. 

No competition between students? But isn’t Lincoln Park a big competition? Hopeful students must audition to become accepted. Students must also audition for plays and musicals as well. Then there is this new addition of sports to Lincoln Park, and as all people know, sports are competitive by nature.  

Next, I heard that it wouldn’t be fair to rank the students because of the many different school districts we come from. There are different grading systems at each of these various schools so the grades coming into Lincoln Park are all scaled according to their previous district. 

So why doesn’t Lincoln Park convert the grades coming in from other districts into the Lincoln Park system? This way all the grades will start out at the same level and be accounted for accordingly. Or better yet, ignore the incoming grades and only consider Lincoln Park grades. 

Now, I’m not pleading for valedictorian and all that. I think the ranks should be kept private. Students should only be allowed to see their rank if they ask the guidance counselor. This way, some fragment of Lincoln Park competition will be kept private.    

However, class ranking will help seniors with applications. I’ve talked to some seniors and we mostly agree — just having a class rank looks better than nothing.  

–Amber Christian