Sorry, kids. You can't have Waitr bring lunch to you at school.

Amanda McElfresh | The Daily Advertiser

Show Caption Hide Caption WAITR Founder Chris Meaux Waitr was named the startup business of the year and will receive a Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame Award.

Lafayette High Principal Donald Thornton gives his students credit. They can be pretty clever. It’s great when they use those smarts and creativity for academic purposes.

Not so much when they try to covertly have food delivered to them on campus.

The school sent out a reminder this week about the no-delivery policy after Waitr drivers showed up with meals students had ordered.

“Every year at the beginning of the year we tend to see it happen,” Thornton said. “The Waitr drivers don’t know if the food is for staff or kids. They will show up and say they have an order for someone, and it’s a student who is in class. I’ve seen some kids try to wait under the pavilion, which means they are skipping class, as well.”

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On the day the reminder was sent out, Thornton said six or seven Waitr orders showed up at the Lafayette High office. If the order is for a student, Thornton said, Waitr has to take it back.

Waitr spokesman Dean Turcol said the company's policy is not to deliver to students during school.

"All deliveries ordered from the school address go to the school's main office," Turcol said.

Officials say this isn’t a new problem. Waitr was founded in 2013, but has steadily expanded the geographic areas and restaurants it serves. And, of course, pizza restaurants have delivered for decades.

Joe Craig, chief administrative officer for the Lafayette Parish School System, said the deliveries are banned for several reasons.

“Administrators have concerns about the safety of a meal that is brought in by a restaurant. You would expect that meal is safe (non-spoiled) and wholesome,” Craig said. “The school cannot necessarily guarantee the food’s safety, and not allowing the meals to be brought to school reduces the possibility of a problem. There are also concerns about food allergies that might result when outside meals are brought in.”

Craig said there are other concerns. All schools try to minimize the amount of outside foot traffic for security reasons.

“It makes it too easy for someone to come onto campus under the pretense of dropping off a meal,” he said.

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Plus, a rush of deliveries can overwhelm the office staff and disrupt classes if a student is called to the office to pick up a meal.

Thornton said he hasn’t heard any serious complaints about the policy or the reminder.

Just some groans from students whose plans were thwarted.

“The kids get a little upset because they got busted and their food was turned away,” he said. “Nobody has gotten any kind of (discipline) referral or anything like that. We’re just trying to curb it at the beginning of the year. It’s the same tricks we know about, just a different group of kids.”