College should be free

   Published May 27, 2026

Jacob Hoffman

Cub Reporter

DDHS is well known for having one of the largest campuses in Oregon, but is it time for more availability and movement around lunch, considering the amount of students in DDHS?

DDHS has had one of the largest campuses since around 50 years ago, with eight main buildings for students to access such as the North and South building. Yet, as there are two cafeterias and a cafe where students can access food, it lacks options for the area of eating, seating for students, and tabling options.

Students are limited to only the North and South building for eating indoors unless they have permission to have lunch in any of the other buildings. Even as they have access to the North and South building for eating, there are still some areas where students aren’t given access to eat or move towards those areas unless they have permission to access the area. 

Seating is another problem. While students tend to move around the campus, talking to their friends, the cafeterias are overwhelmed with the large amounts of students. The North and South building have only dedicated seating for eating lunch. Some students are taking note of this as well, as students can be seen sitting on the stairwells of the North Gym and even on the floor talking and eating to their friends. Some students can find this annoying with their walking space limited due to the people sitting on the ground or stairway interfering the way.

Tabling options are also limited throughout the school's campus. While seating options could be alternated by sitting on stairwells or on the ground, the tabling for setting your food down is more challenging. Students can have trouble setting their foods, with some putting them on their laps, on seats without tables, or even on the ground. This is also a problem due to it having the risk of the food falling off their lap and taking up seating for students to sit down.

While this problem can be towards our high school, it’s also towards us students; due to some students taking up space for themselves on seating, table, and garbage that’s left behind, with reasons like this, it makes sense DDHS doesn’t expand the access for lunch. If we students can help support these problems, our accessibility for seating and areas could be expanded.