Many students often complain about our thirty minute lunch period. Between club meetings, parking pass lines, and getting food off campus, it can often feel insufficient.
When asked how long she thinks lunch should be, senior Tessa Bidlow said, “Realistically, I think lunch should be 40-45 minutes. This way students wouldn’t feel rushed and third period teachers won’t get mad at us for eating in class. Even just an extra 15 minutes would make a huge difference.”
In an interview with assistant principal Dr. Alvarez, she answered the same question, “This is tough, because it is purely my opinion. I think thirty minutes is good! I am aware that 30 minutes is tough for students who want to leave campus and come back, but off campus lunch is a privilege and therefore it is up to students who use it to manage their time.”
An additional factor that frustrates San Marcos students is that Dos Pueblos and Santa Barbara have 45 minute lunch periods. Dr. Alvarez continues by describing how our schedule is slightly different from our rival schools. They only have one late start to our two, and their intervention period- what we call “Royal Time ”- is shorter than ours. Alverez explains how whatever additional time added to lunch must be either added to the end of the day, removed from another period, or one late start morning is eliminated completely. She said, “We are required a certain amount of minutes for each class period…so moving around minutes isn’t a simple answer.”
Personally, I can understand both Bidlow and Alverez’s side of the situation. From a student’s perspective, I agree that lunch feels short. Engaging in clubs, meeting with teachers, and eating a meal cannot all be done within a thirty minute window. However, I agree with Alverez that an open-campus is a privilege and this freedom should be managed by each individual. Finally, I think that students should keep in mind that scheduling is more complicated than it seems, so changing our lunch duration would not be simple. Nonetheless, it is important that students advocate for what they believe is fair for our school’s population.
