Almost every year that I have been a student at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, the lunch schedule would change the new semester. If you were in math class located in the C building, first semester you would have first lunch. Next semester, you could have second lunch. It gives students opportunities to have lunch with new people, create more friendships, change the times that off-campus students can go home at.
This year, the lunch schedules are to remain the same for the upcoming semester. Meaning if you have first lunch, then you will be stuck with first lunch all year. Same people, no chance to get another lunch with a friend you miss.
Some issues brought up have been off-campus students without a sixth period. Some student’s have first lunch on even days, so they will go home and then come back for the last hour of class. Many have expressed wanting to go home and stay home instead of driving all the way back. If the lunch schedule changed the next semester, then they would get a chance to have second lunch.
It would be nice as well to have a change when coming back to the new school year. I know that staying with the same schedule can be repetitive and honestly exhausting, and a change in the schedule could be refreshing.
However, not all students would get that change in scheduling. Classes like Avid, STEM, and PE would remain the same lunch throughout the same year to regulate the crowds and for some classes to not have an interruption during their class instruction like PE.
A junior STEM student named Tori Hashimoto was asked if the lunch schedule should be changed as it has been in the past, “I think so, yeah,” said Hashimoto, “Even though as STEM kids we have first lunch either way, I think it should still change that way I could see my friends.”
Hashimoto expressed how her friends are on Main Campus, and is unable to see them because they have second lunch on both days all year, and despite being in STEM with only first lunch as an option, she still believes that lunch should change.
Stem as first lunch also means that it will only be open during first lunch. Kids in second lunch don’t get access to the microwaves that they offer to heat up their food, or access to the beautiful scenery and places to sit like on their large steps or extra lunch benches located in the back. They can also visit their teachers located in the STEM building if needed.
Another junior student, Calantha Konde, said she wants the lunches to switch the next semester, “I think it should switch after a semester,” Konde said, “I use to have second lunch all last year and I wanted to get to lunch faster.”
Students who have second lunch all year have to wait a full period instead of gaining a break between. While some students would remain having second lunch all year, not all students have too. They could switch and experience the break between.
My freshman year both of my lunches switched and I got experience the difference in people, environment, and more importantly the break in between. Some students expressed how they dislike the change, wanting to keep to the schedule. Others don’t want the break between and continue to keep working to the bell.
The conflict is each person wants something different. There is no right opinion as it is completely subjective, however switch of lunches is not a horrible idea. It allows for a compromise, flexibility for many students. If students wish to continue their work the library is often a quiet place to go.
Keeping the lunch schedule the same throughout the entire year can make things repetitive, the same old after a fresh start of a new semester. A change in the schedule can wake people up, get a new environment instead of the same faces. Or perhaps they can see their friends once again after spending so long away from them. If their friends switch lunches then they can make new friends with new faces.
