Originally, I was going to write this article on my first thoughts of AB lunch within the first week, but I realized that to truly give a well thought out opinion article, I would need to see the new situation played out overtime.
Of course I was mad when I heard we would no longer have Smart Lunch, but once I figured out that we still had clubs, as well as the fact that I had lunch with my best friend I accepted the AB lunch. The first day was chaotic, as most first days are, but angry students need to realize that one of the main reasons for crowding is due to freshman not knowing where to go.
Now on the other hand, having hundreds of (if not a thousand) students shoved into one space during lunch is not acceptable and should certainly be dealt with. There was also a problem with bathrooms, as in there not being enough available to use and students having to wait seven plus minutes.
Part of the reason for changing lunch had to do with teachers not receiving enough of a break during lunch. Teachers spent their whole lunch herding students here and there, all while dealing with occasional fights. I personally don’t understand how teacher’s breaks work, so this could actually be a positive that students just don’t understand. The negative, though, is that fights didn’t even stop after making many of these changes, so teachers still have to intervene.
Teachers and administration alike also claim that students were not using SMART Lunch, but I don’t understand this statement. I know for a fact that myself and many of my friends used SMART Lunch on a weekly basis for test corrections, homework help, and studying.
In my opinion, the worst part so far of AB lunch is not pushing a bunch of clubs during the same lunch, but trying to get lunch in 40 minutes. For some students that like to go to Backyard Burger or Publix, this isn’t a huge problem with timing. But if, for example, a student like myself wants to go home for lunch (and I only live 8 minutes away) I have about 5-10 minutes to get food and drive back.
In terms of clubs, certain smaller clubs like Creative Journaling Club or Book Club are perfectly fine only having one lunch to have meetings, but honor societies such as Spanish National Honors Society have to seriously adapt. Instead of having A lunch to bring in an authentic Hispanic dish for hours, students now have little to no chance to gain in school hours because of the cramped club schedule.
Students, including myself, are simply frustrated. It seems like everytime I ask teachers questions about AB lunch and the reason the administration got rid of SMART Lunch, the answer changes. If students don’t get a consistent answer, they will just continue to hate on AB lunch because they don’t understand the reason behind changing it in the first place.
