Lunch is really a BIG deal around here

Juniors and Seniors can go out for lunch. On most decent days they do even if that is the steps and front lawn. Not sure that Dairy Queen is all that much better but it is important to be an upper class grade person and have that right.

9th and 10th graders are not allow Ed to leave the building for lunch but still maintain their own rituals around lunch time.

In order to provide for a longer lunch hour we moved from a 3-period lunch schedule to a 2-period lunch schedule. There is a 25 minute period in between the two 30-minute lunch periods. So a student has "A" lunch then 4th period class or 4th period class first then "B" lunch. Thus, half of the student are with their friends one of the two lunch periods.

Starting long before I came, the students choose to eat their lunch in a variety of places. Some stay in the windowless cafeteria. Others the there lunch out into the link with windows on both sides and others out into the commons. The link and commons do not have seating so the student pitch camp on the floor and form their circle and clusters of friends. After a couple days you know where to find a particular student even though their is no assigned "seating."

For the most part this works well -- although the first time you witness it, it does appear very strange. It is an unstructured free social time for the students. We ask them to be responsible for their own clean-up and behavior is normally civil. There are times we provide some reminders and it takes a few weeks for the younger students to get the idea of personal responsibility.

Due to the size of the student body, we may need to rethink this process. It takes less than 8 minutes for the students to move through the lunch line, find a place to eat and finish lunch. That leaves the vast majority of the time as unstructured social time. This can be study groups, friends catching up on the day, meeting new friends or reading by one's self. But it also leaves time for silliness and confusion.

I know it takes a couple weeks for some of the younger children to get into the flow of being responsible for one's self. I know we have only been at this for 19 days. But I know we need to be neater and more respectful of each other. I will have a chat with students Monday morning about a couple of the obvious problems. I will monitor the situation during the week. If we need to return to z three or four-lunch period we can do that with no change in classes or teachers. It is just the time of lunch-- before, during or after.

I have great faith in the ability of the students to meet the challenge and take care of business.