Food for Thought : Fast-Food Vendors Get Mixed Reviews for On-Campus Meals

Stretched out on the school lawn during lunchtime, Jeffrey Norman looked inside the brown McDonald’s bag and got angry.

The Hawthorne High School student had plunked down $3.50 for the two-cheeseburger combo. He found the burgers, but something was missing.

“They put chips in here and a soda. No french fries,” the freshman said, tossing aside the small bag of chips. “McDonald’s isn’t McDonald’s without french fries.”

Still, he can now get a Big Mac right on campus--the payoff of a new school policy confining most students to the grounds during lunch hour.

This year, the Centinela Valley Union High School District implemented a closed-campus policy that requires written approval from parents for students to leave Hawthorne and Leuzinger high schools during the midday break. The rule was imposed after some area residents and merchants complained that students caused trouble in surrounding neighborhoods.

Officials are hoping to head off incidents like this week’s shooting of a Leuzinger student, who was wounded in the arm by a suspected gang member outside a campus gate--after school hours.

To placate students affected by the lunch-hour restrictions, the district invited five fast-food vendors--Taco Bell, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway Sandwiches and McDonald’s--to operate on the campuses.

But for teen-agers, being experts on such matters, the new offerings drew a critical clientele--and complaints that the meals aren’t the same as those at the off-campus franchises. Norman’s fries, for example, were replaced by potato chips because the vendor can’t keep the spuds warm in the portable serving cart.

Before Leuzinger and Hawthorne began their expanded lunch offerings, Paramount High School was the only high school in Los Angeles County with fast-food outlets on campus.

At Paramount, which had similar problems with students roaming nearby neighborhoods, administrators brought in Taco Bell, El Pollo Loco and Subway.

In Orange County, Capistrano Valley High School opened a fast-food court last September, and the Capistrano Unified School District recently approved the addition of food courts at two other high schools.

Paramount is a closed campus at lunch, as are many high schools in Los Angeles County, but in Orange County, officials simply wanted to give the students more variety.

Centinela Valley schools Supt. Joseph M. Carillo said the closed-campus policy allows officials to keep closer watch on students.

Previously, many who left campus during lunch did not return, Carillo said. People who did not belong on campus would find a way in. The district had also received complaints of wandering students loitering on private property, starting fights in restaurants and committing vandalism.

“I don’t like the kids coming here,” said Seung Hwang of the Don Don teriyaki restaurant near Leuzinger High. “We had a lot of trouble, broken windows, gang fights. We had to call the police all the time.”

But not all the schools’ neighbors are pleased with the new restrictions.

Frank Cheng, the owner of Premium Doughnuts, said the closed campus has hurt business.

“Lunchtime is very different now,” he said, sitting alone in his small doughnut shop, which used to be full during the noon hour.

“Ninety-five percent of the kids are good,” Cheng said. “It’s the other 5% they should keep in school.”

Larry Alexander, the manager of a nearby El Pollo Loco, had a different complaint--that unlike a neighboring Taco Bell, which is delivering burritos to the school, he was not invited to sell on campus.

“Lunchtime profits have taken a 20% dip,” said Alexander, who plans to call the district to see if he can set up shop at Leuzinger. “We had to decrease employee hours. We used to have seven (employees) on at lunch, now we have four.”

Meanwhile, teachers have been reassigned to campus supervision to deal with the greater number of students staying there for lunch, and security guards monitor all exits.

Parents seem happy that their children must remain on campus--fewer than 10 at Hawthorne have signed notes asking that their children be released at lunchtime. The jury is still out, however, on whether the students will take to the idea.

The fast food is not prepared on campus, prompting complaints about its freshness. Students are also disappointed that the vendors do not offer their full menus.

“There isn’t enough cheese on the pizza,” said Hawthorne senior Betty Meneses, picking at an offering from Pizza Hut. “Yesterday, it was soggy. One day, I tried the Subway sandwich and the mayonnaise was spoiled.”

Of course, they could be in the situation of students at Inglewood and Morningside high schools, who also are confined to their campuses (unless parents release them) but do not have the extra food choices.

And the long lines seem to indicate that, for all the griping, the new fare is not exactly unpopular.