Introducing Hamilton’s Newest Expansion: The Cafeteria
Photo taken by Charger Press.
As we ease more into the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year, many of us have most likely adapted to the new changes this school year brings, one noticeably being our renovated cafeteria and the effect it has on lunch times. In previous years, lunch has had three lunches: A, B, and C. Now, there are only two lunches, early and late lunch.Early lunch starts at 10:14 and late lunch starts at 11:44 everyday except Wednesdays—where early lunch is at 10:35 and late lunch begins at 12:56. All lunches have longer periods than earlier years, now 33 minutes long.
Additionally, on October 3rd, Hamilton’s school administration staff hosted a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new and improved cafeteria space. The expansion project started around October 2024 and completed its final tweaks the first few days of the school year in September. The cafeteria expansion proposal was brought to the Sussex community in April 2024, where taxpayers in the district voted for expansions to happen around the district such as this. With the approval of the referendum, more funding was set aside for the brand new Hamilton Cafeteria.
In my personal opinion, I see the new cafeteria as a place with mostly positive impacts. Overall, I am a fan of the open area, but not a huge fan of how early in the morning early lunch can be. I spoke with Associate Principal Mr. Doyle, who shared similar opinions to mine and more additional information about the space, including the reasons behind early and late lunch times.
What was the main reason for the lunch room to expand?
Well, overall, the lunch room expansion came from the referendum project that took place and that was one of the big pieces to finish up over the summer. But ultimately, we wanted to have a bigger space that could support not only when we have lunch every day but also when we have events. Not only athletics, but for any events that are being held after school, for choir, band, etc. It is a larger space for people to have access to and [offers] more room for others to gather in.
What are some of the best features from the cafeteria expansion?
The first thing that stands out to me is having a much bigger cafeteria space for our kitchen staff. Now it is fully equipped with three different options that are available for students to go through and have choices each day. The next piece of it is having an actual concession area. With last year, our first year as an admin team, it was just a small little setup that was right in the walkway, which could have caused a lot of frustration and chaos. Now having a concession defined area has also made it very nice and spread out for students to have access to. The third piece of it is the addition. We have gotten feedback that the seats against the wall tend to be a popular spot because of the bigger windows and brighter area for people to be at. But also on that side of the cafeteria, there are taller ceilings, making the space feel more seen and open, which allows for people to be more connected with one another.
Why do we have an early and a late lunch instead of A, B, and C lunches? And why is early lunch so early in the morning?
Now with advisement not being in the morning and taking place in the afternoon, that additional 30-35 minutes move towards the back half of the day instead of being on the front half of the day which has been common in the past for that. But then to stick to our everyday schedule of 84 minutes per class period after going through first and second block with our starting times of the day, that’s when Early Lunch would start. If we didn’t start it at 10:14, then we would run into the third block beginning. At some point, students have to leave in the middle of that class, go to lunch, and then come back into that class.
Why are lunch periods longer than before?
Our biggest thing was that now instead of around 500 students being in the cafeteria for lunch, it’s close to 750 roughly in each lunch. Knowing that we had more students within that, we needed to also allow for more time for our kitchen staff to be able to get lunches served to all of those students. When putting together those schedules, you don’t know what that process will look like until the first day of lunch hits. We had a lot of communication with the students knowing that they might need that additional time because there are now an additional 250 students within that space. A few extra minutes at lunch is there for social opportunities [which is] equally important for students with a heavy academic day.
What is your perspective on the new cafeteria overall? Are you a fan of the new lunches?
I feel that it is a beautiful addition that has been added to our school. Now when anyone walks into that space, it looks updated and welcoming. I would hope that our students feel the same way because our staff notices that it is a much bigger space.
Finally, what are some good or bad things you’ve been seeing happening in the cafeteria lately? What is working well and how do you plan to solve the recurring issues at lunch?
One of our perspectives that I think is outside of not only happening during lunch time is our Wednesday late starts. Now that there is a little bit more space, I observed that it allows students to be a little bit more spread out and some opportunities to work more independently that we didn’t have in the past from not having the addition in the cafeteria. Moving forward, some things that we may have to consider is that the 8th grade class and behind them are both bigger classes, so we might have to reassess if two lunches is something that we can continue to maintain. It is important for us to keep it a priority for instruction and not pulling students away in the middle of lunches. If the number of students becomes too big, then we would have to reassess in the summer time the opportunity of three lunches again and see what that looks like.
All in all, the brand new add-on to the Hamilton cafeteria and the new lunch times has brought positive impacts for the entire student body. It has introduced music themes for Fridays, and kept the community close together and organized. I’m excited to see what the future brings for this space and how it’ll build a positive environment for all students, including me.
