Havergal Eats: A Lesson in Gratitude
Meatless Monday, Taco Thursday, Hello Dollies, and Mac and Cheese are all examples of the food Havergal offers if you are up to waiting in a long lunch line. With a quick tap of your swipe card, you have access to endless caf cookies and croissants, all billed to your parents’ charge accounts. According to a survey I recently conducted, one in two girls will buy a snack at Havergal’s cafeteria at least once a week, demonstrating the popularity of the snack program. Add that to the number of girls buying lunch daily, and you see the impressive success of Havergal’s meal program.
Hannah Hagos is a Grade 10 student studying here at Havergal College. She is an excellent example of a regular caf visitor. On Monday, she purchased cereal for breakfast, a muffin for a morning snack, a Ready-to-Go sandwich for lunch, and skipped the after school snack. Due to the convenient scanners in the caf, she is able to scan her swipe card and dismiss the price of her food without a second thought. Her average daily expenses are around $8.65. How do her HC expenses compare to her other meal expenses outside of school? Popular nearby meal destinations include Shoppers, Pusateri’s, and Starbucks. These businesses receive thousands of dollars each day from students studying in the surrounding area. Instead of eating in, Hannah has the option to go out for lunch and spend $4 at Shoppers, $10 at Pusateri’s, or $5 at Starbucks. Evidently, the amount of money that Hannah saves when eating at school is substantial. An entire day’s worth of food at the HC cafeteria would cost her $8.65, whereas a singular lunch outside of school could cost up to $10.
Since purchasing meals at school rather than outside is a financially savvy decision, it is easy to see why parents would encourage eating at school rather than going out for lunch. So why do so many students still proceed to populate nearby businesses during the busy lunch hours? After interviewing more students, the conclusion I gathered is that, regardless of our meal program’s wide variety of options, school lunches can get quite repetitive. Leaving school grounds for lunch provides an opportunity for new meal choices, as well as a chance to stretch your legs. It also permits you to get a change of scenery rather than stay in school for the entire day. Clearly, meal prices are not necessarily the most important factor affecting where students buy their lunch—here are many other factors that also contribute to their final decision.
Havergal parents, on the other hand, pay $33,850 a year in tuition fees, which excludes the cost of food provided by the school. Since our tuition fees do not go towards providing us food from the Havergal caf, what is this money being spent on? To further investigate this inquiry, I sat down with Ms. Ellis to learn about the faculty’s perspective on where our tuition might be going. She informed me that all teachers are paid the same, regardless of where they teach. When it comes to wages, teachers in Canada follow the same salary grid when it comes to their wages. Their level of education and years of experience are also considered. If teachers in COSSOT schools get paid the same as teachers in the TDSB, our tuition clearly does not go towards teacher paychecks. So where does our money go? Ms. Ellis brought up a fascinating point: Havergal has a communications department, a funding department, fundraising branches, the HOGA association, a board of directors, and landscapers. Unlike the TDSB, which is a single board for over 600 schools, Havergal has to fund all of its own departments, including its physiotherapists, wellness faculty, and experiential learning experiences.
Take a moment to think about the services you use in a single day. We take the sanitation unit, the amazing food services team, and security all for granted. These facilities provided by Havergal play an integral part in shaping the welcoming and dependable school community.
Seeing where our money goes makes it easier to understand the price tag of our tuition fee. It goes toward enriching the Havergal community, thus enhancing our learning experience. If the cost of tuition means a better learning environment and increased opportunities, then I am all for it.