Here at OCHS, we have a lunch time of 30 minutes. Many students complain that 30 minutes is too short, especially for those who want to spend their lunch off campus. Students argue that other schools have longer lunch times, and that it is unfair that we only are allowed 30 minutes, while also not having a passing period included into the beginning of our lunch. Due to long lunch lines, some students only get the second half of lunch to sit down and eat their food.
Required Lunch Time
The minimum amount of time that schools are allowed to have lunch is 20 minutes, so technically OCHS is already 10 minutes above the minimum amount. That still doesn’t change the fact that students who attend OCHS feel rushed during their lunch time. Edweek.org says that students need at least 20 full minutes of “sitting time” at their lunch in order to perform better in school. The website cdc.gov states that missing out on lunch at school has a negative impact on students’ learning ability, and short lunches create space for large amounts of food to be wasted every single week.
Wasted Time
At OCHS, we have 30 minutes to eat lunch, but we do not have passing time on the way to lunch, making it even shorter. Many students have to wait in line for a school lunch, which can take up to 15 minutes sometimes! Kids at this school, along with others, are losing roughly 20 minutes of their lunch every single day. Edweek.org voices, “According to a survey by the School Nutrition Association, students also must use that time to use the restroom, walk to the cafeteria, and stand in line, which can leave precious little time for students to sit and eat their meals,” proving that a large chunk of students’ lunch time is being used for tasks other than eating.
Off Campus Passes
Many juniors and seniors who have licenses and cars enjoy spending their lunch off campus, but with such little time, and the threat of getting your off campus pass taken away, most don’t see the point in leaving. There are only a few places that students can go in order to make it back to class in time. Most students even eat lunch in class because they spent their 30 minutes driving to get food. Essentially, there is no point of getting an off campus pass if we don’t even have the appropriate amount of time to use it.
Solutions
An easy fix to this would be making our classes even just slightly shorter, and adding that time to our lunch period. Classes at OCHS are already so long in themselves, especially compared to last year’s schedules, so taking a couple minutes out of our classes to add them to lunch would be an efficient use of time. I believe that providing a longer lunch period would highly improve the overall academic performance of students at OCHS, and create a safer, healthier community.
