Staff Shortages At The Hub

The Hub, the lunchroom located in Waukee’s Innovation Learning Center, is frequently closed due to Covid-19 and staff shortages leaving some students looking for other lunch options.

The Hub, the lunchroom located in Waukee’s Innovation Learning Center, is frequently closed due to Covid-19 and staff shortages leaving some students looking for other lunch options. “Due to Covid and other staff shortages, The Hub does close from time to time. Plan to have a backup for lunch or bring snacks the first day just in case” reads an email sent out by APEX director Michelle Hill to new APEX students. The closings come as no surprise as the massive worker shortage across the country has left many employers needing backup plans. Especially with the rise in Covid-19 cases of the past few weeks and the two factors of labor shortage, most days, the nutrition staff is looking at a 32-35% reduction in staff most days. As of now, the nutrition department has ten open staffing positions which make up 14% of their staff reduction. 

Each day Jeannie Allgood has to relocate usual Hub staff to other schools where positions needing to be filled are more necessary. “It’s a big puzzle to figure out [daily],” noted Director of Nutrition Services Jeannie Allgood. “When you combine the two factors of labor shortage and daily staffing issues of staff being sick, basically were in crisis mode,” she went on. Allgood expressed how she and the nutrition staff are exhausted scrambling to get kids fed and get positions filled across the district. “We are very resilient and doing the best we can right now. Hopefully, students understand that it is probably the most trying time any of us have ever experienced in food service,” ended Allgood.

These routine closings affect not only staff who have to be in the building the whole day but students as well. Some students anticipate relying on The Hub for snacks before their lunch break or for actual lunch. APEX student and senior Jaxon Haynes has an afternoon APEX class that looms right over lunchtime. Haynes detailed “I would like to rely on The Hub…I don’t go back to the high school so I would like an area to get food after APEX”.

For Apex instructor Cindy Snell, she understands how the closings are stressful on the Nutrition Department and noted that associates do have other lunch options than The Hub. “While it is disappointing that the Hub is not open I do understand the issues with a shortage of staff across the Waukee Nutrition Department.  It is good that all APEX Associates do have options to pick up food at their high schools before or after their APEX Block,” said Snell.
As nutrition staff positions fill up and Covid-19 cases lower, The Hub will hopefully reopen, and Allgood and her staff can even open up the Northwest coffee shop which is her second goal after The Hub reopening.