Lunch time is important for Kayla Hawkins.

“It really throws you off, like, if you can't eat or have a proper meal during the day," she said. "Especially, with your classes; it makes it hard to focus.”

But there are big changes coming to the way meals are served at the Poughkeepsie City School District, and Kayla, a senior at Poughkeepsie High School, is already seeing some of them.

“There’s way more variety than there was in the beginning of the year," she said. "Because it used to be like, you would come to lunch, and I have lunch during the last period, so usually it's like the stuff left at the end of the day, and it would be one option. But now, there's like way more, there's more variety.”

The change is being brought by Shameka Watson, the new director of food services at Poughkeepsie who previously worked in New York City schools. She says creating more options, including healthy ones, will make a big difference in making sure kids get enough to eat.

“When students have more options, they are prone to eat more," Watson said. "Because I do feel if I go to school and it's the same stuff every day, all day, you're not going to want to eat it. So I say options.”

In addition to more options, Watson wants to bring in new equipment for food prep and freshen up the way the cafeterias look. She says a combination of district and state dollars will fund the changes.

It comes as budget negotiations that could impact state spending for school meals across New York continue. Lawmakers in both the Senate and the Assembly included $280 million for statewide universal school meals in their own budget resolutions in March.

Gov. Kathy Hochul's initial budget plan did not include funds for universal school meals, but did include $34.5 billion in total school aid, and $60 million in grant funding to support locally sourced school meals and food retailers in underserved communities and regions.

Watson said lunchtime is critical for students.

“There's a lot of students, that this is the only meal for the day," she said. "So it's important for us to provide those meals for them and give them a safe haven or that comfort zone where they just want to come and just relax and eat a nice meal for the day.”

These meals help students get through the day.

Hawkins, Poughkeepsie’s salutatorian, says she couldn’t do it without the folks in the kitchen.

“Coming to lunch and then if it's routinely not the options that you want, it makes you not want to come. And it's just easier if there's that variety there, there's more of an incentive to actually be at lunch and then eat throughout the day," she said.