By David Serfes

Pine Whispers

Going through high school takes a lot of responsibility, and during these four years students surely display it by applying to colleges, keeping good grades and by learning to drive a car. If students can be (mostly) trusted with the responsibility of driving a 4,000-pound machine to school every day, why aren’t we deemed responsible enough to leave campus for lunch?

Just about every junior and senior at Reynolds High School can admit to leaving campus to grab a bite to eat at a nearby Hardees, Bob’s or Qdoba every once in awhile. Sometimes, one accidentally leaves his or her lunch at home, or suffers from an unexpected hamburger craving during third period. These things happen, and nobody wants to go hungry because they have no food with them at school. There is no harm in allowing a licensed driver to temporarily leave campus for something as simple as food, and it’s a wonder that schools have a problem with this.

The current Reynolds student handbook is explicit in describing allowed activities during lunch. In its characteristic warm and cheery language, the handbook states, “Reynolds High School is a closed campus. Students may not leave for lunch. Students who choose to leave will be considered ‘skipping’ and are subject to disciplinary action.” Apparently, the school believes that lunch is an academic class period, and students are missing out on learning the nuances of eating by leaving campus to get food.

Now, it is understandable that Reynolds wants to keep an eye on all its students for liability concerns and to prevent students from skipping class. The lunch policy might be so strict because an occasional student who left for lunch in past years was involved in a car accident and the student’s family foolishly held the school responsible in a court of law. Maybe the school is afraid this could happen in the future.

Either way, the easiest solution to this concern would be to have some sort of waiver for students to sign during the registration for a parking sticker. By signing the waiver, students would agree to not hold the school responsible for any possible mistakes that happen outside of campus during their lunch period.

There will always be some students who take advantage of a privilege like this and leave campus in order to skip class. In that case, the school has every right to prevent a student from leaving. However, Reynolds should not assume, as it now does, that every student is leaving with the intent of skipping. Teachers in the class period the student has after lunch have an obligation to take note of tardies and absences and inform the main office so that action can be taken.

As students, we don’t ask for much and put up with a lot during the school day. Over the past few years, we have endured constant schedule changes that add more and more time between class and lunch. This year, first lunch doesn’t even begin until noon, creating a whole lot of stomach growling for students who missed breakfast in the morning. To make matters worse, no food or drink whatsoever is allowed in the halls and in classrooms. Students resort to calling parents to drop off lunch, which disrupts the parent who may be at work, or order a food delivery.

Seriously, someone has to feel bad for the Jimmy John’s delivery guy who makes multiple sandwich runs to the landing every other day, only to be barked at by a teacher or resource officer for violating school rules.

A recent call to Burke Street, done solely for the purpose of journalistic investigating, confirmed the workers there will hesitate to deliver food to Reynolds if the pizza isn’t for a class party. This is what a strict lunch policy is doing to our school: a damaged relationship with Burke Street and all of its savory garlic knots.

Letting mature young adults enjoy the freedom of an open campus during lunch adds a small privilege into the strict set of rules we follow every day. Our resource officers have much greater concerns than patrolling the parking lot during lunch, and surely they can’t enjoy having to do so.

Teachers and administrators: Try to remember how much of a burden school already is, and help us lighten the load with a Qdoba burrito and a Chick-fil-A milkshake thrown in.