New "One Lunch" rule receives student backlash
New “one lunch for all” rule, enforced for the 2023-2024 school year, received backlash from the student body primarily being upperclassmen. Prior to the 2023-2024 school year, lunches were broken up into two, separating students into an early or late lunch schedule.
In an informal poll, one hundred randomly selected students from each grade level were asked where they stand with the new policy.
In result, sixty-seven percent of selected students voted that the one lunch was a poor idea while the other thirty-three percent voted that the new rule was perfectly fine. The majority of students who sided with the one lunch policy were underclassmen while the majority of the sixty-seven percent were upperclassmen.
Many students believe that one lunch is too rushed and find themselves not having enough time to eat or find a place to sit down due to larger crowds with the same amount of time. A solution students commonly lean towards was leaving in their personal vehicles to purchase an off campus meal, although this year the policies regarding leaving campus for lunch have grown stricter. Though eating in student’s personal vehicles could seem like a proper solution, administrators do not have control over the students while they're in their cars while they are still held responsible for each student.
According to Assistant Principal Jen Buscher, the rule aims to accommodate the sudden decrease in student population. In the 2022-2023 school year, the population of the student body came to three thousand people and we now are below twenty-five hundred students which signifies the desired amount for the singular lunch. In response to the students who wish to leave campus, Buscher said the restrictions were made in consideration of the student’s safety within the Southeast Portland area as well as the responsibility that administrators hold while students would exit campus.
“It’s overcrowded for students.” said lunch staff member Simon Chan, “For us, we’ve done it before so we aren’t too phased by it, so our only concern is how we are going to get all of you through the lines in a timely manner.”
Although many students are discontent with the new rule, there are some students who find the rule to be convenient. For instance, freshmen do not have to undergo the confusion of two different lunches which helps ease the anxious change from middle school to high school. Upperclassmen too have benefited from the one lunch schedule, meaning they are able to see their friends without having to compare late and early lunch schedules. In addition to the convenience, meetings with teachers are much easier to schedule as well since everyone is on the same schedule.