The JV volleyball team have voiced their opinions about extending lunch and the freedom to go off-campus to retrieve lunch from the restaurants surrounding the school. They stated that the school should allow them to go off-campus to visit the surrounding restaurants during the “free time” we receive during the day.

I agree with the statement.

First off, with all the restaurants popping up around the school, it allows us students and faculty to eat our favorite restaurants that’s in the school proximity, still giving the faculty some type of “watch” power over the students.

Second, giving us a longer lunch can give us more opportunities to do more stuff that we probably can’t do in a classroom, it gives us more time to fellowship with close friends who aren’t in our class, or we can use the extra minutes to meet up with our clubs or organizations and create new and fun ideas to engage students and possibly help the school.

Lastly, us students should have more freedom and more choices regarding food, not including the food choices here at school. Sometimes, we want to eat a burrito, or sometimes the school doesn’t serve us what we crave, but opening the doors to the outside world during school hours gives us more independence to branch out and eat want. Also, it teaches us integrity, because we have to decide to do what is right despite the heavy temptation to leave.

Some of the athletes themselves spoke up about lunch. Sam, a freshmen softball and volleyball player, explained that there are too many people squished in one lunch, and a bunch of athletes come in very hungry and leave the way they came due to the short amount of time the school provides. She also states that we still have to pay for the lunches at school, and instead of wasting our money on something we don’t even want, the school should let us go off-campus and let us spend our money that we can actually eat and indulge in. Casey, a volleyball and track and field athlete, added on claiming that the lines take a long amount of time, so most students are getting out of the lines by the time the trash comes around. Some people can’t even get their food because of how long the lines can get. Erika, a sophomore volleyball and track athlete, states that our fight count would decrease if we weren’t stuck in one room, she also states that a longer lunch can give students a much needed mental break from the heavy course load that we get every day. She also recalls one day she was one fed a singular piece of bread for lunch, and as an athlete that is not good whatsoever.

Some people might argue that the school is giving us something like that, which is the parents dropping off food at the front and having the students come and pick it up. Yea but, most of the time the students are forced to wait till the end of the day because of the location the parents dropped off the food, and some parents work full time so most students don’t even get that opportunity. Also, most of the time the food is cold when we get it because of how long it takes to arrive at school, but if we can get it by ourselves then the food is still fresh, hot, and we can eat it immediately instead of waiting twenty plus minutes for some chicken tenders.

So in conclusion, I agree with this statement.

One solution that we can do is have the opportunity to go outside of school as part of a reward system, or another reward you can receive just by having your trust card. That way, the school can encourage the students to wear their IDs more often and it gives the students more amazing food choices.