Open Lunch
February 4, 2010
Filed under Opinion
The hardest part of being a teenager is making the right choices. When it comes to lunch at Ottawa High School, there aren’t a lot of good choices to be made. When we were freshman, we always complained about the poor quality of the food, and how expensive it was. Now that I am a senior, poor food is just accepted as a sad fact of life at OHS.
Back in our parents’ day, open lunch was fairly common. Students were allowed around a half hour to go and eat. They were still expected to be back and in class on time. Their schools were still able to function just fine. I do not see why open lunch could not work now.
There is certainly some risk of accidents, but no more than there are after school when there are lots of teenagers on the road. There is also perhaps some security risk, as it would be impossible to monitor all of the students while they were off school property. But if students are required to be on time, and absences and tardies are counted as normal, it seems like these risks would be minimized.
The ability to go out into the community for lunch does not have to be available to everyone. It could be used as in incentive to reward students who do well in school, similar to the Gold Card program in middle school. It is odd to offer rewards to students with excellent grades in middle school but not high school, where they really count. I know there is a top 5% dinner, but something more tangible would be nice. The middle school program of offering coupons to students who excelled was a much better motivating factor.
Students often are frustrated by the rules and decisions of this administration.
The school’s lunches are not so bad. They are not the unhealthiest foods available, and for the most part, are probably healthier than what people would buy if they were unleashed on the town. But after many years eating the same lunches made by the same company, a change would be nice.
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Schuyler Foulke
Last 5 posts in Opinion
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Very good points Schuyler! I had open lunch when I was in High School 20+ years ago and we did just fine. They happened to close the lunch hour the year after I graduated. I would think that would put more of a burden on the School District – to close lunch because they have to accomodate the rotating lunch schedules with the classes. When I was in school there was the 1 lunch hour and it seemed to ease the confusion and hassle of having to deal with multiple lunch hours.
I very much like your idea of using Open Lunch as an incentive – or possibly even just for certain classes – like for the Juniors & Seniors. I don’t understand either, why there isn’t a similar incentive program @ the high school like there is in the Middle School. I have also wondered, too, why OHS doesn’t publish their Honor Roll in the paper like the other schools do. The school should be proud of the kids who work so hard to do well and reward them accordingly.
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