It looks like any other lunch, that is besides a few trays and plates that have incorrectly ended up in the garbage can, plus the unusually loud noise. It would seem completely normal if not for the absence of students standing by the bathrooms or the door leading to the locker room, waiting to leave. Actually, it seems that fourth period lunch may not be that ordinary after all.
With the eighth graders moving to the high school, many changes have occurred. From new faculty members to two separate dances, some changes have gone smoothly; others have been more of a challenge. Of the changes one that has not gone as smoothly as planned is the eighth and ninth grade fourth-period lunch.
Eighth and ninth grade counselor Lynn Keenan has been working with these students and has witnessed the problems with this lunch, one of which is the amount of students with lunch that period.
“Fourth period lunch has a lot of students,” Keenan said. “It is the same group of students that used to be split into three lunch periods.”
According to teacher and fourth period lunch supervisor Bill Webb the amount of students isn’t what is causing the big problem. It is having all the new students in one lunch, without being split up like they had been in previous years.
Webb has even offered a simple solution to fix the problem.
“Don’t have eighth and ninth graders in one lunch period,” Webb said. “They have no upperclassmen role models that way.”
Keenan has also realized the problem with no upperclassmen in that lunch, but has come up with many other ways this problem can be solved. Among those solutions would be to have Link Crew join the lunch occasionally to provide leadership, making a walking path outside to let out energy, or having games and activities available for use after students have completed their lunch. According to Keenan, that is the time when students get antsy and need to move around.
“It’s fine when they’re eating, but it’s the nine minutes when they’re done eating,” Keenan said. “They didn’t know what to do for those nine minutes, and some of them were making bad choices.”
Steps have been taken to improve the atmosphere and tone of the lunch, which have seemed to have helped. Students must now sit down at their table when they’ve finished dumping their trays. It seems this step has made a big difference.
Freshman Lexi Gordon is in the fourth period lunch and was affected when the rule was first established.
“It bothered me when we had the rule put on us, but it doesn’t bother me now,” Gordon said.
Freshman Ashlyn Neal is also in the lunch and thinks that things have gotten better.
“It could still get better, but it has improved a lot,” Neal said.
Although the administration has had to set rules to help fourth period lunch run more smoothly, they are not trying to make the students miserable. They are simply exploring new ways to make the lunch period beneficial for everyone involved.
New incentives have been put into place after Principal Root’s message on December 12. One is Tiger Pride cards, given out to students who are showing respect. Students can collect five of these and come to the Guidance office and select something from a basket of goodies. Keenan’s goal is to give away five to ten Tiger Pride cards a day, looking for students who are behaving and doing the right thing in the lunchroom. Another incentive that has been started is giving away “Speed Passes”. This allows someone to go to the front of the lunch line.
“We want everyone to enjoy the down time and social time with friends,” Keenan said.