“Okay, let’s put the food away for now. You guys just had lunch.”

At one point or another, you have probably heard this from one of your 6th period teachers. While 45 minutes is ample time to eat a meal, teachers can’t expect students to go out to get food and be done eating it in that time span.

One of the privileges of being a junior or a senior is being able to go out for lunch – but the magnitude of that privilege is significantly reduced when you are speeding back to school at 11:30 with the scent of chicken nuggets and waffle fries creeping out of that Chick-Fil-A bag, just waiting to be eaten. Sure, you can try to stuff it down with the 4 minutes you have to get to class after you pull into your parking spot, but what fun is that? You paid for that meal and you want to enjoy it. So, you decide to save it for a moment in class where you can slickly pull it out of your bag and munch on it rather than scoff it down. But wait – your teacher has adamantly stated that only water is allowed in class.

There is a simple way to rectify this issue: add 15 more minutes to LAP.  With another 15 minutes for lunch, students would have a sufficient amount of time to go out for lunch without the worry of being late or having to bring food inside the classroom.  Conversely, for those who stay at school rather than go out to lunch, it would give them more time to go in to see a teacher, attend the National Honors Society’s library tutoring sessions, or spend time with friends and regenerate before their afternoon classes.

Increasing lunch by 15 minutes may seem like a substantial amount of time when people argue that it “takes away from valuable class time.”  However, when it comes down to altering the schedule it would not take much to find those extra 15 minutes.  One way to add the extra LAP time would be to simply take 2 minutes out of each class period – to save 14 minutes – and 1 minute out of the morning announcements

Students do a lot during the day.  Each class period, students engage in work and take instruction that is mentally exhausting.  Providing them with a full hour at LAP would afford those who leave the extra time to enjoy their meal and not rush back to school, provide involved students extra time to work or get help, attend club meetings, or simply recharge themselves Whether extra time creates an opportunity for a quick lunch run or extra help from a tutor, everyone can benefit from a 1 hour lunch.