If you have ever been in the South High cafeteria, you know how fast seats fill up and how hard it can be to get a seat. So many kids are standing by the walls, there is a line of at least 10 people for the microwave, and the line for lunch isn’t even a line – it’s a clump of unorganized chaos. There are people sitting on top of each other, and many groups of people struggle with finding a space to sit at that fits everyone. Some people have resorted to staying in class for lunch, or finding a teacher who will let them stay in their room for the period. Usually these problems resolve themselves a couple weeks into the school year, but two quarters later, this is still a problem. We talked to several people about what they have noticed, and this is what they said:
“Some lunches have more people and some have less, and there’s no in between” – Gabri-Ella Martinez
“There’s too many people, and there is nowhere to sit, and [that] sucks, because I don’t know many people at lunch.” – Sam Gomes
“It’s bad, I see at least 5 people eating their food on the floor.” – Neveah Baillargeron
“There’s a lot of people, I feel like it’s way too packed.” – Ahmad Alali
Additionally, many students say that they have to stand, or just wander the school or cafeteria while lunch is going on because of there being no room to sit anywhere. They say that teachers don’t try to stop students from sitting on the floor, but they do try to stop them from sitting in common rooms.
As you can see, many of the students agree that the lunches are packed, and that on some days, one lunch may be much more full than the other. They agree that a lot of people aren’t happy with the current situation at lunch and there needs to be some kind of solution.