GEARY – All Geary High School students will now be allowed to eat lunch off-campus, the school board decided last week, but can’t drive anywhere during that time.
The decision will impact students in grades nine through 12, who don’t order from the school cafeteria in large numbers, school officials said. Previously, only seniors were allowed to go off-campus for lunch, per student handbooks.
Board members made the call during their regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 7, the bulk of which was spent going over the district policy manual and addressing needed changes. The open campus discussion was part of that agenda item.
All four Geary school board members and Superintendent Sean Buchanan were present for the meeting. One thing to consider about the school’s lunch policy, Buchanan said, was that reducing cafeteria participation might jeopardize the school’s ability to offer all its students free or reduced-price lunches, as it currently does.
But there are so few high school students eating cafeteria food, the board decided, that changing the policy is unlikely to affect that status.
After the board had already approved the change, several Geary High School softball players came to the meeting, fresh from a game and still in uniform, to support an open-campus lunch policy. Elliott Harrall told the board that they’ve been keeping track of where high school students eat lunch; only 41 did so at school, Harrall said, while the vast majority either ate food from home or didn’t eat lunch at all.
The girls also collected permission slips from juniors’ parents supporting an off-campus lunch policy.
While the players were excited to learn that all high school students can now leave campus, they were disappointed that the board prohibited them from driving during lunch. “How are all of us going to get from Point A to Point B in 25 minutes?” Harrall asked.
The board encouraged them to place lunch orders ahead of time, have meals delivered to them, or bring food from home.
Bus stops
During the meeting, Buchanan also encouraged the board to reconsider the school’s busing policy. School buses are currently serving students who live within Geary city limits, including those who live within blocks of the school buildings. What’s more, the buses are currently going door-to-door to pick up and drop off students.
Buchanan said most school districts don’t offer bus service within 1.5 miles of school buildings, and said the service is primarily intended for students with longer commutes.
The board agreed that going door-to-door is an unreasonable and time-consuming effort for bus drivers, especially near the school. They asked bus drivers to create two or three bus stops within town limits, where drivers can pick up multiple students rather than driving to individuals’ houses.
One of those stops should be on the east side of town across Broadway, board members agreed, while another might be situated in northwestern Geary. The district says it will make sure families have adequate notice before any bus stop policy is implemented.
Contractors’ remarks
Buchanan invited several contractors, who regularly work on district buildings and properties, to address the board and the community at the beginning of the meeting. The contractors said the district’s current facilities regularly require costly maintenance and are out of compliance with some state regulations.
“A lot of your equipment is dated,” said Cody Thompson of CAT Mechanical Inc., which regularly handles Geary schools’ HVAC needs. “You’re running on refrigerant that is outlawed, at this point, on a lot of things.”
Thompson said the old equipment is “killing” the district’s power grid and costing it money. “I need some direction on how to save the school money,” he said. “I can keep duct-taping things together – that’s literally all I’m doing, fixing one part here and one part there. It’s not helping y’all at all. I don’t want to make millions of dollars off of you, but we need to have a community plan, a school plan, a town plan. Everybody needs to get together so we can make this work.”
Brent Johnson, of Banner Electric, agreed. “The first thing we need to start with is the power grid,” he said. “It’s not in good shape. I can put surge suppressors all over the place, but they’re just going to take so many hits, and then they’re not going to perform well.
“I don’t know if you’re still planning on maybe trying to build another school,” Johnson continued. “If not, then we need to get together and make a decision on, what are we going to keep? What buildings? Where do we want to start? I would suggest starting with your main services, and from there going in. But the grid is an issue.”
Thompson said the surge protectors are like “duct tape on a sinking ship.”
COVID Numbers
As of Tuesday, Sept. 7, Geary principals reported that 63 elementary school students were in quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure and 36 middle and high school students were in quarantine.
Students vaccinated against COVID-19 are not required to quarantine after exposure, but only students age 12 and older are eligible to be vaccinated.