On the first day of school, students walked into the cafeteria and were greeted with 3 brand new vending machines.
Last year saw the introduction of the tap machine, allowing students to pay for snacks without cash, and this year three new machines were added.
A google form was sent out to survey student opinions on the new machines. For many, the extra supply is reliable.
“I think it’s a more efficient way for students to get snacks/their lunch from the vending machine without having to wait a long time only to be faced with their favorite snack gone,” an anonymous sophomore said.
Still, others feel that it takes away from the lunch lines.
Previously the lines held a diversity of cuisine allowing students to be more elaborate with their choice of lunch.
These lines ranged from the salad bar to Italian food. Having the same thing fed to everyone now leaves many frustrated with the quality of the food.
“It’s the same in every single line. Then they close the doors for the salad bar, they close the doors for the snacks,” junior Jayla Sumby said. “They just stopped doing all the good things.”
AHS prides itself for its diverse community, so it is also evident that it prides itself on its free and reduced lunch for all students. With many eating snacks as lunch, it makes the program pointless.
Senior Saron Amdemeskel feels the money invested in the machines takes away from the lunch lines.
“I like that the vending machines gives us more options but I just don’t like how it took away from the food options on the lines because I feel like they’re not as diverse as they were last year,” Amdemeskel said. “They just shouldn’t have bought as many vending machines as they did, because now they’re probably struggling to pay it off when they could have just simply kept the two they got from last year and put more of the money into the food lines.”
Additionally, with the price increase of 25¢ for each purchase, many students like junior Maazin Khalid feel wronged because they have been secretly losing an extra 25¢.
“I had no idea,” Khalid said. “But now that I know that I’m being charged 25 cents more, it makes me feel like I want to buy [snacks] less.”
An anonymous junior from the google form went as far to say, “The price increase set me off, like people aren’t gonna have $1.25. Plus this is how I found out like why didn’t the school even notify us of this. I only eat the snacks for lunch so over time the extra 25 cents are gonna add up, like every 4 days I miss out on an extra snack.”
With rising prices and fewer choices in cuisine, students are beginning to question whether the convenience is truly worth the sacrifice.
“It’s very much excessive. Is it really worth having less quality food in the lunch lines to have more vending machines that have the exact same things every day, all day?” junior Eshan Van Heerden said.