Open Campus Lunch

As a high schooler, did you ever want to have more freedom and to prove to others that you are responsible? Allowing high school students to leave campus for lunch gives them this and much more. Some may argue that it is dangerous to allow students leave campus. However, if the privilege is limited to only high school students that have parental consent, there are fewer risks. Cafeteria lunches can be unhealthy and if high-school students can leave campus, they can pick their own nutritious lunch. In addition, our cafeteria is usually packed, and there sometimes are not enough seats for everyone.

What makes it worse is that we are not allowed to eat inside the school building. By letting high school students buy their lunch off campus, the cafeteria will not be as full. The school board should consider allowing high school students to leave campus for lunch because students can choose healthier foods, our cafeteria will become less crowded, and will give students a chance to prove to others that they are responsible and can be trusted. The school board should make our school open campus so that high school students can purchase their own nutritious lunch. “In 2010, more than one-third of U.

S. children and adolescents were overweight or obese,” (Stuber 2). A large cause of this problem is because of the unhealthy food served at school lunches. The majority of students at this school who buy school lunches do so because they either forgot to pack a lunch or don’t have food prepared for school at home. “A recent study found that students who regularly ate school lunches were 29% more likely to be obese compared to those kids who brought their lunches from home,” (Axe 5).

Also, it has been proven that eating healthier foods can improve students thinking skills, health and the way they act. “Healthy eating also contributes to better performance on vocabulary and visual skills tests,” (Clarke 5). Some argue that if students were allowed to leave campus, they could try to skip class or might show up late if given the opportunity, but the solution is simple. Many schools have a rule that if students do this, they will be punished with detention or have the privilege taken away. If high school students are allowed to leave campus, they can buy healthier lunches from a place of their choosing. The school board needs to make our school open campus so that the cafeteria becomes less crowded.

Our school’s cafeteria get extremely full because there are so many students and the lunch room is so small, making the place too busy. According to a high schooler at River Homelink, Vera Demchukov, “Most students want to eat lunch with their friends and cannot always sit together.” To make matters worse, students are not allowed to have lunch in the main school building. However, if high school students are trusted to leave campus, they won’t have to go to cafeteria to eat lunch. With most or all of the high school students out of the cafeteria, it makes more room for the younger students. High school students should be able to leave campus for lunch to help make the cafeteria less crowded.

High school students need to have open campus lunch to have a sense of independence. When you were a high school student, did you ever want to have more freedom? To have permission to go places? To be trusted by adults? One of the main reasons why high schoolers at this school want to leave campus is for this very reason. According to connectfunds, a global issues blog, one of the pros about open campus lunch is, “Open campus lunch is observed to have taught students to be able to interact with the world and be more responsible in certain ways that are closer to how adults do it.” Another way how schools do open campus is to have only students with good or passing grades, and their parents consent, to be allowed to have lunch off campus. That way, students have extra motivation to do well in school, along with younger students who would have this to look forward to as get older.

The school board should give high school students the choice to eat lunch off campus because it gives them more freedom and the opportunity to prove to others that they are responsible. Many students want to have the option to leave campus for lunch. It allows students to purchase healthier meals, makes our cafeteria less crowded, and gives students the chance to prove their responsibility and give them more freedom. When students eat nutritious meals, it improves their academic performance. Also, if we can go out for lunch, it makes our cafeteria less full, which gives more room for younger students.

Finally, it teaches students to be responsible and trustworthy. I encourage the school board to consider the idea of an open campus for high school students. Would you want to have this privilege?