Western High School cafeteria to reopen after four-year project

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004 | 11 a.m.

After more than four years without a cafeteria, Western High School hopes to be serving students lunch indoors by the end of the month.

"This is a gambling town, so I'm willing to bet a school lunch we're in (the cafeteria) within two weeks," Warren Hagman, assistant principal of athletics and facilities for Western said Monday.

The cafeteria was taken over in 2000 by the band and music program while the 40-year-old school's original fine arts building was being torn down, Hagman said.

"It was supposed to be temporary," Hagman said. "I'm not sure whose definition of temporary we're using here."

Paul Gerner, associate superintendent of facilities for the district, said the delay in reopening the cafeteria was due in part to plans for the campus changing in mid-stream -- at the request of the school's administrators.

What was initially just a theater addition evolved into a $42 million renovation project slated to take place over four years, Gerner said. The school could have reclaimed its cafeteria earlier but preferred to use it as classroom space, Gerner said.

"They've been eating outside by choice for a long time," Gerner said. "I'm not sure anybody here (in the facilities department) agreed with that decision but that was the decision they made."

The design for the new fine arts building has been completed and is expected to go out to bid next month, Hagman said. School officials hope to begin using the new building by the start of the 2006-07 academic year, Hagman said.

For the past four academic years Western's students have been served lunch from 10 mobile food carts spread out in the campus' modest quad. That's meant long lines to purchase food and little extra space for students to sit and eat.

Hagman said he was surprised to find a crew of workmen inside the cafeteria Thursday, busy tearing down the partitions that had turned the space into four oversized classrooms. The work continued through the weekend and by Monday walls were being repainted and the kitchen was scrubbed.

Hagman said the music and band classes will be moved to several double-wide portable classrooms that are being set up elsewhere on the campus. He didn't know why that option wasn't put in place before.

Las Vegas City Councilman Lawrence Weekly, whose ward includes the neighborhoods surrounding the campus on Bonanza Road at Decatur Boulevard, said he was aware of -- and frustrated by -- the school's lack of a cafeteria.

"It's absolutely shameful," said Weekly, who graduated from Western in 1982. "I'm really surprised that it could go on this long. I commend the administration, faculty, staff and students for hanging on and working with what they had. As you can see, they survived."

The lack of a cafeteria hasn't just been a hassle for lunchtime diners. It's also left the school without a meeting space for large groups. The campus theater isn't big enough to hold either the freshman or sophomore classes -- each more than 800 students, Hagman said. That's put a crimp in the school's testing schedule as well as in its plans for special assemblies and guest speakers, Hagman said.

Stephana Henderson, a ninth grader at Western, said the school's single lunch period -- from 9:55 to 10:30 a.m. -- comes too early in the day and is too crowded. Just seven weeks into the academic year, "hitting Jack in the Box" after school is already a tradition, Henderson said.

"Bacon cheddar wedges!" Henderson exclaimed, as her friends chorused their approval. "Curly fries! Shakes!"

Jasmine Solorio, also a ninth grader, lamented the demise of junk food offerings once plentiful in campus vending machines. A new district regulation took effect this year on the nutritional content of food sold to students, banning most high-fat snacks and candy bars.

"The lines are too long (for the carts)," Solorio said. "At least before you could run to a machine and get something good fast."

Sue Hoggan, spokeswoman for the district's food services department, said no other high school is without a cafeteria and no campus has ever gone as long as Western without one. Students at the campus buy 350 "combo meals" daily with another 600 to 800 students ordering a la carte items, Hoggan said. With the cafeteria reopened the food services staff expects to greatly increase sales as well as the amount of time it takes to serve students, Hoggan said.

"You can't compare the efficiency of carts to having a full cafeteria with all of the (serving) windows open," Hoggan said. "We'll also have a more complete menu because the kitchen will be right behind us instead of a block away from the carts."

As part of the 2004-05 annual plan the district has $178 million in school repairs and renovations slated for 156 schools. The 2003 Legislature also approved the district using $230 million in bond sale proceeds to replace 10 aging campuses, with 50-year-old Ranch High School topping the list.

The approved projects range from $400 to wire a display screen in Hyde Middle School's gymnasium to $9 million for a new heating and cooling system at Las Vegas Academy, the district's performing arts and international studies magnet high school.

Renovation and modernization projects slated to begin this school year include: