Seventh hour lunch lacks quality
Seventh hour lunch may be useless to students
April 24, 2019
Everybody loves food, whether it is healthy or unhealthy: the calzones, the personal pizza, the nachos, the chicken patties, and the best of all, Kathy’s cookies, which are loved by the students. However, some of these treats are limited for seventh hour students due to scheduling.
Grayslake Central has around 1356 students, so the school needs to have space for everyone to have a lunch period if the student wants one. In order to have enough space for each student that wants to have a lunch, there needs to be a enough lunch period options for scheduling.
But, what is the point on having a seventh hour lunch when students only have an hour left until they go home? Instead of having a seventh hour lunch, students could go home and eat what they want to and choose another class that they desire to take instead of eating at basically the end of the school day from 12:55 to 1:50.
However, counselors focus on what the students want to do as a career, graduation requirements, and classes that interests them. Some of the classes only get taught during certain periods. For exam- ple, journalism is only taught only fourth hour, so if a student wanted that class, there is no way that they could have fourth hour lunch.
“Counselors have no say in what specific class or class period a student is put in. The master schedule is made through PowerSchool, which randomly assigns students to a certain hour to ensure that the greatest number of student requests can be fulfilled without conflict.” said Stephanie Rossie, a counselor at Grayslake Central.
During my time in seventh period lunch, I have noticed people sitting by themselves due to the smaller number of students in that lunch period. It is important for students to have friends they can interact with during their lunch, but sometimes students don’t get this chance in seventh hour. Spending time with friends at lunch also by default helps students feel comfortable at the school by being able to talk to their friends, they can get help with homework, or other problems they are facing.
In fact, in an article by Psychology Today ti-tled,The Health Benefits of Socializing, written byAngela K. Troyer, it is discussed the reasoning as to why socializing is important. “Connecting with your friends may also boost your brain health,” said Troyer. But, due to the lack of student life in seventh hour lunch, students might not get the food they want because it is gone or get to sit with friends, which then leads to the student to become discouraged or uncomfortable at school to speak up.
As a senior, looking back at my four years of being here, I can safely say my experience has been interesting. As the years progressed, I began to become a little more comfortable with this
environment especially because I had a chance to socialize with my friends and to make new ones at lunch. In my freshman year, I wouldn’t answer questions or talk to many people when prompted. Sophomore year, I started to branch out and makefriends during my fifth period lunch–there werejust so many people to meet. Then my junior
year was when I started to engage in class, raise my hand, and voice my questions and concerns to teachers when something didn’t click, which Icould continue to explore with friends during fifth period lunch. I made more connections as the yearscontinued. When finally at the end of my senior year, right now, I have learned proper skills that I will need for my real world life after high school. And with seventh period lunch to end my senior year, I am voicing my opinion in saying that ideally seventh period lunch should disappear. All studentscould benefit from an earlier, fuller lunch periodwith their friends.
