After the expiration of the Papa John’s Pizza contract with the school district, Domino’s Pizza will now be providing the district with their own “Smart Slice Pizza”, presumably for the next 3 years. High School and Elementary School cafeterias across CCSD gave a test run of the Domino’s pizza on Aug. 23.

“Honestly, they [the students] didn’t really care at first, because it looked just like Papa Johns,” senior cafeteria worker Jayden Hilili said. “I’m not completely sure anymore because people have been hyping it up, so I guess they’re excited.”

The test run was mainly a way to see how the students reacted to the change and get a baseline number for how many pizzas they would need for each school lunch. A total of 80 pizzas were made for the test run.

“We sold out of all of it [the pizza]…. That was the highest number that we served in this kitchen so far,” food service manager Stephanie Siderakis said. “A lot of them were very excited about the pineapple. I don’t know if they thought it had ham, but they were like ‘Whoo! Pineapple!’”

Domino’s provides both meat and vegetarian options — including pineapple pizza — while Papa John’s only offered cheese pizza.

“It’s good obviously, it’s just that they [the school vegetarian options] are different variations of the same thing over and over again,” senior Sahib Rattan said. “But I mean, it allows people [who] are vegetarian like me [to have] more options if they don’t have the ability to make lunch at home and bring it like I do.”

Additionally, to meet CCSD lunch standards, Domino’s greatly altered its original pizza slice. The Domino’s Smart Slice Pizza has enriched flour and significantly less sodium and fat. Additionally, the previous Papa John’s pizza slices had been cut by hand and unevenly proportioned, while the Domino’s pizza is cut by machines and carefully proportioned.

“I think it’s good to have healthy options, I mean especially at a school that has a student store that sells a lot of unhealthy items, so I think it’s a good balance,” Assistant Principal Kendra Kelley said. “I do hope that per the government, students continue to receive free lunch for everyone so that they can get what the state and district has deemed as healthy.”