TAMPA -- The cheeseburgers, green beans and mashed potatoes waited for hundreds of hungry children at Westchase Elementary School's cafeteria last week. To wash it all down, there were boxes of chilly milk, chocolate or plain. And a side of pear slices, if they so chose.

It was lunch time.

It was also 10 o'clock in the morning.

Thanks to crowded schools, the time of day usually associated with breakfast has become the lunch period for thousands of Hillsborough County children. At almost every public elementary school, lunch begins about 10 a.m., sometimes earlier. Students usually eat in half-hour shifts.

At some schools, lunch doesn't end until almost 2 p.m.

About half the school district's 112 elementary schools have more students than they were built to educate -- and feed. The problem is not as severe in the larger middle schools and high schools.

Westchase Elementary uses its multipurpose room and cafeteria for lunch to feed hundreds more students than originally planned.

A mobile cafeteria was wheeled in at Limona Elementary so more children could be fed at one time.

"Our employees are working sometimes four hours on their feet just to get kids through," said Mary Kate Harrison, Hillsborough's director of student nutrition services. "They have to make sure every child in the lunchroom has an adequate amount of time to eat."

Most everyone hates the early meal times, but no one seems to have a solution. Dietitians wonder if children are waiting too long between meals, which can cause fatigue, irritability and a lack of concentration.

The premature and late lunches have some parents wondering if the meal should be called brunch.

The whole issue turns Sue Farel's stomach.

"I dare you to sit down and eat a bowl of spaghetti or chicken fingers at 10 in the morning," said Farel, whose third-grade son attends Westchase. "You can't do it. I know. I tried. It's just too early for normal adults to go to lunch."

Last year, Westchase was one of about a half-dozen schools that began serving lunch at 9:48 a.m. (School meal times can be very precise.) This year, it was moved back to 10 a.m. Alafia and Lithia Springs elementaries, however, held the record last year for the earliest lunches in the county: 9:45 a.m.

Farel said the times are bad for children who have to eat too early and then wait until after school to eat, as well as those who have to eat lunch past noon.

"What are they doing in the morning, starving?" she said. "It's not right. True, the kids don't seem to mind it that much, but I don't think they know any better. They don't know when they're being taken advantage of. Parents do."

School Board Chairman Joe Newsome said lunch times have continued to creep earlier and earlier through the years. With an average of 4,000 new students a year, he's not surprised, but he is perplexed.

Newsome plans to broach the issue with his board colleagues Tuesday.

"We don't like doing it that way," he said. "I don't know what the answer is. It's something we need to talk about."

Federal regulations require schools to provide lunch between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. If they have to serve meals earlier or later, they must seek exemptions from the state Department of Education.

Brooker Elementary PTA President Connie Lay said some children eat breakfast at 6 in the morning, and the early mealtimes make sense for them. "It's not like they're there till 5 in the evening," said Lay, who has two daughters at Brooker. "I'm certainly not for it. But with overcrowding, what is the answer?"

After school last week, Alafia Elementary parent Janet Jones and her two sons, Travis and Ryan, were hurriedly making their way to McDonald's.

Nine-year-old Travis, who eats lunch at 10:20 a.m., was famished by the end of the day at 2:15 p.m.

But it's not the time that bothers the fourth-grader. It's the food.

"We had riblet sandwiches," he said, crinkling his nose. "Yuck."

"I think he only had two bites or something," his mother said. "And he needs to gain weight."

When Jones, 47, learned of her son's lunch time, she thought she heard him wrong.

"I didn't believe him," said Jones, whose family recently relocated to Florida from Long Island, N.Y. "Ten-twenty seems a little early to me. I thought he was off by an hour."

Alafia Principal Sylvia McMillan said she has to answer a lot of questions about the lunch period from parents such as Jones. How can they eat at that time? Why do they go so early? Are they even hungry?

McMillan usually explains the difficulties in getting 1,200 children into a cafeteria built for an 870-student school. She can fit about 250 children at a time in the cafeteria.

With a little tinkering with the schedule, the school moved its lunch start time back by about 30 minutes this year.

"It's still early, but not as early as 9:40," McMillan said. "We were just excited to have it at 10:10."

At Alafia, like several other schools, teachers usually ask parents of children who have early or late lunches to bring a snack to ease the hunger pangs.

Snacks, such as fruit or juice, can reduce hunger and keep children from gorging themselves during meals, said Cynthia Sass, a dietitian with the University of South Florida and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

She said children should have meals every three or four hours. Otherwise, their blood sugar drops too low.

Because most elementary schools start at 8 a.m., some children have to wait nearly five hours between breakfast and lunch. And those students who eat lunch at 10 a.m. may get hungry by the time school ends.

"There may be some side effects," Sass said. "It's important for a child to have some sort of snack to get through the end of the day."

Olga Hearne, a food service assistant at Limona Elementary, said cafeteria workers rush to finish serving breakfast and start serving lunch.

At Dover Elementary, breakfast ends at 9:45 a.m. and lunch begins 15 minutes later.

"By the time you're cleaning up from one meal, another group of kids is coming," said Hearne, who has worked for the district for 26 years. "We go, "Oh my lord. It's 10:15. It's 10:20 and the kids are lined up.

"We don't like it. Nobody likes it. It's a headache all over the county."

Westchase Elementary parent Maggie Haley said the unusual lunch period seems to work for most children.

Unlike working adults, children end their school day early in the afternoon. So eating lunch earlier is not a big deal, she said. One of Haley's two sons eats lunch at 10 a.m. and has a snack in his classroom in the afternoon.

"It's difficult for adults to understand," she said. "But it doesn't seem to affect the kids as much as the parents. I've got two growing boys, and they'd eat all day long if you let them."

In the Westchase cafeteria last week, Assistant Principal Karen Bass watched as children filed through the two cafeteria lines, filling plates with cheeseburgers and mashed potatoes at 10 a.m.

Others around the room scarfed down peanut butter and jelly and turkey sandwiches they brought from home.

She said her own cravings for lunch don't begin until 11:30 a.m. or so.

"Children tend to adjust," Bass said. "We don't adjust so well."

- Melanie Ave can be reached at (813) 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com.

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