Lunch is the time of day when students can have some time to themselves and take a break in between classes. But is that break long enough? Here at Granger High School, there are two lunches, 1st lunch and 2nd lunch, both lunches are 35 minutes long and some students are not content with the amount of time given for lunch.
For instance, Eva believes that lunch is just a little short, “During lunch, I get to hang out with some of my friends, especially those I don’t have any classes with. Although some days I feel that it is pretty long, most of the time I wish lunch were a little longer because I want to be with my friends,” Eva Arciga (12) said.
As for what Granger can do to fulfill the wants of the students concerning the time given for lunch, ”I wish we had maybe 10 more minutes of lunch, just to get ready to adjust for my next class, and leaving school for lunch because you can have whatever food you want and to get out of school for a little,” Arciga said.
Some students recommended that the school combine both lunches so that lunch is one hour and ten minutes long and class times would not be affected, but Jennifer Bertho (11) believes that there some pros and cons to combining the lunches, “It would be really cool to combine both lunches like if you didn’t have friends in lunch one day, but it might be a problem with the amount of people.” she said.
This is a relapsing concern for students because Keira Pahl (11) thinks similar to this idea, “An hour lunch would definitely be fun, but it might feel uncomfortable in the crowded space, as everyone would be eating at once.” she said. Although Keira believes an hour lunch would be chaotic, she does think 35 minutes is still too short for lunch.
“The 35-minute lunch period is generally good, but it would be nice to have more time to eat and do homework, rather than having to choose between the two,” she said.
The main concern for students and staff members regarding the idea of combining both lunches was the space issue. People believe that having the whole school at lunch at the same time in the lunchroom and commons would make it too crowded and unsafe, but what isn’t being noticed is that many students at Granger leave the school for lunch already. If there were more time given for lunch, more people would be inclined to leave the school for lunch, making it less crowded inside the building and safer for everyone.
Jennifer compared having the whole school in one lunch to trying to get out of the doors when school is let out: chaotic. So if we were given even 10 more minutes of lunch, to both 1st and 2nd lunch maybe this problem could be avoided as would the problem of lunch being too short solved.
