Clear the Cafeteria: East should be letting all grades leave for lunch due to COVID-19

By now, most of us have the CDC’s pandemic guidelines ingrained in our brains. Stay six feet apart. Try to stay outdoors when in groups. Wear a mask. With in-person school back in session, most districts have tried to uphold these precautions through protocols like distancing desks, dividing hallways and assigning staircases for students to go up and down to reduce crowding.

But for as much planning as the school has done to safely host students, one precaution has fallen through the cracks: our lunch protocol. Although students eat at spaced-out desks in smaller groups, many are unmasked and often hopping up and down to throw trash away, or go say hey to a friend. As of now, only seniors are allowed to leave campus for lunch, but other grades must eat in the lunchroom. If we’re forced to group unmasked people in one big room, the rules need to be stricter.

Although seniority rules typically say that only seniors can leave, all grade levels should be allowed to leave for lunch, especially for students who feel unsafe in the lunchroom. This would reduce the number of people in the cafeteria and give people that aren’t comfortable another option.

While the school might feel that underclassmen aren’t old enough to leave the building for lunch, even letting juniors leave would cut out 1/3 of the students in the lunchroom, creating a more spaced out environment. If juniors are paying for parking spots, they should be allowed to at least sit in their cars and eat, away from the overcrowded lunchroom setting.

Even with attempts to space out students, a sense of discomfort overtakes me every day as I share an eating space with many other students who aren’t necessarily staying put in their desks the way they should be. The slightest cough or sneeze makes me want to get up and head for the doors. 

With my mom having an immune compromising disease and my brother heading off for the military soon, contracting the virus and bringing it home to my family is a massive fear of mine. If the school allowed students to leave for lunch, the lunchroom would be a much safer environment, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being exposed every time I sit down to eat.

While I understand that the school might not feel comfortable letting dozens of cars leave every lunch period, they could at least let younger grades eat lunch in their cars, or at least eat outside the school. A student eating lunch in their car is still technically lunch on campus, and this saves them from taking their masks off around peers.

During my past few in-person lunches, I’ve witnessed several people have cough attacks, and everyone around me has a mutual fear that they are being exposed. Many students feel like they need to keep their masks on during this time, prioritizing their health over eating. Eating lunch in their cars would eliminate this fear for students, and allow their stomachs not to be grumbling till the bell rings to head out for the day.

And if students aren’t allowed to leave for lunch, the school should at least be more strict about the cafeteria. Students shouldn’t be allowed to leave their desks without a mask, and there should be teachers or staff members actively enforcing that. 

For the cafeteria itself, students would feel much safer if we were better spaced out and everyone followed the rules in places about wearing masks. 

Although the announcement that the district will resume remote learning after Thanksgiving break through second semester, COVID-19 won’t be going away. When students do return, administration needs to think through lunch plans with a more safety-driven and less seniority-driven mindset. If there are fewer students in one area without masks, there is less exposure, helping to mitigate the community’s overall number of cases – so why not make the change?