Have you ever gone off campus for school lunch? If you have, odds are you are a junior or senior, or an underclassman who has snuck off campus.

At Paint Branch High School, academically eligible seniors and juniors are allowed to go out for lunch. This policy has been in place for years for seniors and began in the new building for juniors, and students have enjoyed going off campus to eat. The privilege of open lunch makes students feel mature and responsible and shows the school trusts them to return in time to get to their next class.

However, this scenario isn’t the case. Seniors and juniors may enjoy their open lunch, but they certainly aren’t being mature and responsible when returning late to their 5th period class, carrying bags of unfinished food from Chipotle, McDonald’s, and Chick-Fil-A.

Arriving late to class, for any reason, is seen as a disruption to the students who were able to arrive to class on time. Teachers probably don’t appreciate the tardiness of the students, nor the food they’re carrying. If students go out to lunch, they should at least have the decency of returning to school on time.

However, tardiness and unfinished food aren’t the only problems that open lunch can cause.

The school is responsible for our safety throughout the entire school day and they do their best to keep us safe. However, if seniors and juniors are acting irresponsibly when they go out to get their food, especially while driving, they could get seriously injured.

The staff now has the unnecessary stress regarding the safety of their students, all for the sake of eating a fast-food meal that we enjoy.

It’s understandable to think that a horrible accident will never happen, that people going out to lunch are taking precautions in order to be safe, and that staff members have nothing to worry about. However, as unlikely as it may seem, there is a greater-than-average possibility of something awful happening, especially to those people who drive to get lunch. The reasoning is that students who do drive have had their license between only a couple of months to no more than 2 years. That means that those students are still in the zone of being the most at risk of getting in a vehicle accident.

It may not even be that the driver is irresponsible. The driver could be in a difficult situation like having tons of friends in the car or rushing to get back to school and making poor decisions.

There is a risk even for the students who walk to 7-Eleven or Pizza Hut to get their lunch. The students walking out to get their lunch have to cross the busy intersection of Old Columbia Pike and Briggs Chaney Road, which can pose a big safety hazard. Add to both of these facts the realization that teens don’t often make the smartest decisions; after all, that’s why we go to school.

In theory, off-campus lunch is a nice option to have and is a completely reasonable idea. However, so many uncontrollable variables might make it safer for the students to remain in the school building.