Regular commuters traveling along Glover Lane in Milton, may have recently noticed construction happening at Hobbs Middle School in Milton. The school is currently going through a renovation, which will include a new cafeteria with additional seating space.
Floyd C. Smith Jr., the school’s principal, said the renovation has long been needed.
“It will give our cafeteria staff… a new area and up to date equipment to serve lunch here on campus,” Smith said.
The expansion will bring the current cafeteria to nearly 4,200 square feet. The new kitchen will give the staff new equipment to use, Smith said.
“They will have totally new cooking equipment from the pots and pans all the way to the new appliances,” he said. “It is going to be a much improved work space for our staff.”
The project is expected to be completed before the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year, Smith said. Currently, the students meals are prepared and transported to the school from the kitchen facility at Berryhill Elementary School on a daily basis.
Lola Simmons, one of the cafeteria staff, said she is getting used to transporting food and dishes back and forth between the schools. She is one of several employees looking forward to next year.
“I’m looking forward to new kitchen,” she said. “There is a lot more children that goes here now then there used to.”
Smith said the cafeteria can currently seat around 250 students. Once the project is completed, he anticipates seating 350 to 400 students in the cafeteria. The middle school has a total of 674 enrolled students.
Once completed, the larger cafeteria will allow for more education, Smith said.
“Hopefully, if it all goes as planned we will be able to take away three lunches and just have two lunch periods,” Smith said. “The middle lunch to second lunch is a time where instruction is interrupted, because they start class they got to lunch and then they go back to finish class. That is the drawback from having three lunches, because one of them is interrupting.”
Having two lunch periods would also give cafeteria staff adequate time to clean up between lunch periods, Smith said.
Cafeteria manager Iris Beaudry is not only excited for the kitchen staff, but the students and staff, who will also utilize the new cafeteria.
“We just can’t wait for the new facility, it’s going to be great,” Beaudry said.
In addition to the new cafeteria kitchen, Smith said the school will also receive improvements to their parking lot and bus ramp.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Hobbs Middle School in process of adding a new kitchen, larger cafeteria