116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Here’s how C.R. schools’ $117 million school bond would fund improvements to Kennedy’s cafeteria
Kennedy High School’s chefs say expansion of kitchen, cafeteria could help them serve students faster
Oct. 26, 2025 5:30 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — Kitchen managers Dana Visek and Kelly Schmidt are the first and second people to arrive at Kennedy High School at 6 a.m. to begin preparation for the almost 1,000 meals served daily.
Students at Kennedy get to choose from eight meal options daily. On Wednesday, the main entree was orange chicken with fried rice, which Visek said is one of the students’ favorites.
At Kennedy, the kitchen is a “maze,” Visek said. More preparation space is needed. Meals are served on single-use plates because the high school does not have a dishwasher. All dishes used for cooking and serving are washed by hand in a three hole sink.
The cafeteria is inadequate for the 1,700-student body. Students eat lunch over four periods that begin around 11 a.m. and end a little after 1 p.m.
“It’s not a space that’s conducive to what we actually need. It never has been,” Kennedy Principal Jason Kline said.
A $117 million school bond referendum being put to voters in the Cedar Rapids Community School District Nov. 4, would address the needs of Kennedy High’s kitchen, cafeteria and other parts of the building and projects at three other schools.
The plan includes $12 million for renovations at Kennedy High to expand the cafeteria and kitchen, upgrade security to enhance safety for students and staff, and other improvements for modern learning.
“We definitely see the cafeteria as an extension of the classroom,” said Amanda Foreman, registered dietitian for the Cedar Rapids district. “We know that it goes hand-in-hand with excelling academically and that hungry students don’t learn as well as fed students.”
Jenny Hook, food and nutrition director for the Cedar Rapids district, said there are only three serving lines at Kennedy. Washington and Jefferson high schools have four to five serving lines and serve fewer students daily.
“We’d like to have more serving areas at Kennedy, so we can get the kids through them faster and give them more time to eat and take a break,” Hook said.
“Sometimes, the lunch lines get really long,” said Eden Lutz, 17, a senior at Kennedy. “It can take 10 minutes to get through the line. Most of the time I bring food from home, but I really enjoy when we have mashed potatoes.”
Kennedy has an open campus for 11th- and 12th-graders, which means those students are allowed to leave school grounds during lunch.
“A significant portion of our student body does not eat in the cafeteria because there isn’t enough space,” Kline said.
Some students eat lunch in hallways or classrooms when their teachers permit them to.
“It’s not as if we could mandate everyone be in the cafeteria for lunch because there’s not enough seats to do that,” Kline said.
Being a “lunch lady” was Visek’s “life dream,” she said. Her grandmother served lunch at Harding Middle School for 30 years.
Visek was a stay-at-home mom to three boys five years ago. After the derecho in 2020, she went to the grocery store “and there was no food on the shelves.”
“How am I going to feed my family?” Visek thought at the time.
Cedar Rapids schools, however, provided grab-and-go meals to children.
“We sat down, ate and everything felt normal. I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to be a part of that.’” Visek said.
She’s been working at Kennedy ever since, trying hard to make lunch “the best” every day.
“I have kids come up and say, ‘Who cooked today because the food was so good.’ It’s rewarding to have a teenager come up and tell you that,” Visek said.
“We’re used to working in this kitchen, but the kids deserve a nicer cafeteria. It would be nice to get kids through the lunch line faster with the freshest food we can provide and let them have time to enjoy their lunch and break,” she said.
What’s included in the plan?
In addition to funding renovations at Kennedy High, the school bond referendum would fund renovations to three other schools in the Cedar Rapids district:
- $25 million to renovate Roosevelt Creative Corridor Business Academy, a middle school in northwest Cedar Rapids, to address school safety and operational efficiency issues and to accommodate students from Wilson Middle School, which would become an elementary school;
- $45 million to renovate McKinley STEAM Academy, a middle school in southeast Cedar Rapids;
- And $35 million to renovate Wilson Middle School into an elementary school that would house Cedar River Academy and Grant Elementary, which would be removed from the district’s inventory.
A $117 million bond issue would cost the owner of a $200,000 home in the Cedar Rapids school district about $7.47 a month, or $89.60 per year, starting in fiscal 2027. If approved, the bond would increase the property tax levy to $14.72 per $1,000 of taxable valuation.
In Iowa, school bond issues — basically, loans that schools take out typically for 10, 15 or 20 years — require a supermajority of 60 percent approval to pass. In passing bond issues, voters in the district agree to repay the loan, with interest, through their property taxes.
How does a Freshman Academy help students learn?
The Cedar Rapids district this year launched Freshman Academies at Kennedy, Washington and Jefferson high schools that support students’ transition to ninth grade.
The idea is to create smaller learning environments in each high school that better connect students to their environment.
Students will get more structured support as they transition to high school and learn about career opportunities and how they can explore their career interests through elective courses.
“All our pathways are going to help them build essential skills to be successful in life. It doesn’t matter if you’re in engineering or education or human services, you’re still going to learn how to communicate, time management, collaboration and all those important soft skills,” Christina Langton, who teaches language Arts and Freshman Seminar, told The Gazette in August. “As a parent, I should want that for my kid.”
All freshmen at Kennedy, Jefferson and Washington high schools will be required to take Freshman Seminar as part of the Freshman Academy beginning fall 2026.
Construction — funded by capital project funds — already is underway at Washington and Jefferson high schools to build space for the Freshman Academy at each school. The bond would fund similar construction at Kennedy High where ninth-graders would have their own entrance and wing of the building.
Freshman Academy will help connect students to school by introducing them to extracurricular activities and thinking about career planning.
“Students engaged in school outside of just academics are more likely to be successful academically,” Kline said. “The more engaged they are, the more purpose they see in what they’re doing. These types of activities help them want to be in school.”
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
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