Problem - Lunch Passes

The teaching staff at school had discussions on how 16 minutes for lunch was too rushed for the students. The vice principal had countered our concerns with, and I paraphrase, “they eat very quickly, if you give them more lunch time, fights will start.” As teachers, we were given a very specific schedule. My fourth graders had recess first that started at 11:04 and at 11:21am, they were to have lunch and I was to pick them up at no later than 11:37am for advisory. When I would come to pick up the students, they would almost all still be eating, or in the process of unwillingly throwing out their food. Sometimes I would come down when they had gotten their lunches late, and I was given the signal to come back 4 minutes later to pick them up.  

In the new calendar year, some of my students started asking if they could come up for lunch. To prevent favoritism, the first person to ask would get a blank pass and anyone else wishing to come up would have to get their name on that pass. Within the first week of doing this, I noticed that the students would come up closer to 11:30am which meant they would have only around 5 minutes to eat, since I would start heading down at around 11:35 to guarantee that I would be at the cafeteria ready to pick up the students for advisory by 11:37.

A student joined me for lunch who had to finish her lunch while heading back to the cafeteria to be picked up for class.

During lunch time I started to ask them why it was taking them so long to get their lunch. From there the stories started. It didn’t matter who was coming up - the stories were consistent - they almost never got their lunch at 11:21 which meant they would never have the full 16 minutes since pick up time was almost always 11:37. As a teacher, I was feeling helpless and empathetic, because the students overwhelmingly loved the catered lunch compared to last year’s frozen prepackaged ones. They had real chicken, salads, and pasta dishes instead of lukewarm frozen meals, but because they did not have enough time to eat, they ended up throwing away food that they still wanted.

They also told me stories of how because they did not have enough time to eat, they tried to grab a few last bites before the teachers would come to pick them up for advisory. I have witnessed, and the students have told me, of instances where an administrator grabbed food from the students’ hands and threw it out because lunch time was over even though they still wanted a few last bites. The students also told stories of eating over the garbage bins as they were ushered to line up.

Students trying to get one more bite of their lunch before lining up for class over a giant garbage can.