We’re Tired of the Dine and Dash

Frederick’s 30 minute lunch period is too short for students and teachers

Iyonna Moore and Hajlie Zamudio, Staff Writers

As Frederick students we look forward to going to lunch after our hard work in each long class. Lunch is supposed to be our social hour and our time to fill up with food to prepare us for our next set of classes. However, this is not the case for upperclassmen. For the upperclassmen we are allowed to leave school grounds and fortunately have a couple places close by to get food to be back at the school on time for our next class. Unfortunately when we get to those places we have to wait in lines just to get our food or wait and pay. By the time we are able to get all of our food we have to go back to class and our lunch is already over leaving no time to eat. It leaves us to the point where we are eating in the car or waiting until  we get to class, even then some teachers don’t allow us to eat in the classroom. Imagine you go to McDonald’s for food and are waiting in line for your number to be called and you are watching the clock because time is cutting it close. 10 minutes then go by and you barely hear the person before you get called. You still then have to wait for your number. By the time you get your food you have 10 minutes to get back to the school on time so you’re not late because your parents have been getting more strict about it. You get in the car and drive to the school hoping you get there on time. Imagine you finally arrive at the school when you have 2 minutes left until the bell rings and right as the bell rings we have 5 minutes to get to class but the admin is already yelling telling people to get to class, so even then in those 5 minutes you don’t have time. That then means you have to hurry up and swallow down your food because you can’t eat in your next class. It is very unsettling to do and by the end of that class you end up hungry again because you were in such a rush… IT SUCKS. Here is what the students have to say. Junior Analeah Quintana states “It’s terrible, we have to pay for lunch at the school now but if we don’t want to and decide to go get lunch we basically have 5 seconds to eat…they should be at least an hour”. The students all agree that the lunches need to be longer because nobody wants to be shoving food down all so they don’t get in trouble for being late. Another student but a sophomore Deja Lewis says”They are too long for how long our classes are” which I one hundred percent agree with because how are we going to have 90 minute classes but only 30 minutes for lunch? It makes no sense however we would get out of school later which would suck. Our next student to speak upon the situation mentioned “They are short, they don’t give upperclassmen the time to get lunch and come back in time since we don’t have free lunch anymore. Who wants to pay five dollars for lunch when we could get a Big Mac instead?” Said by Senior Samantha Hernandez. Yes, us having to pay for school lunches definitely does affect lunches because first of all they are pretty expensive especially when we can get something more fulfilling for the same price. LAst but not least Izzie Wartner speaks on the situation “Honestly, it needs to be longer because the only two main places to eat around here are Santiago’s and Safeway and those get pretty boring after a while. Like I want to go to Qdoba and like Wendy’s but we’d be late and for athletes some don’t even eat lunch cause they don’t have time for it but i think they need to make lunch longer.” This kind of ties back to getting in trouble for being tardy, our athletes get consequences for being late to class so they might sacrifice their lunch in order to make sure they dont get in trouble. Hear our students out and extend the lunches… even if it was extended out to like 45 minutes because 30 minutes is definitely not enough time.