Lunch at 10:30am? Wtf.

[tasmanian]

My highschool had 1800 students and only one 50 min lunch. However we had off campas lunch so lots of people would go to the store across the street.

 

[dullard]

10:30 is a bit early, but it isn't out the ordinary. Many schools start lunch at 11 am.

Plus, 10:30 is probably the most healthy time for lunch.
[*]Breakfast at 7:00 am.
[*]Lunch 3.5 hours later at 10:30 am.
[*]Snack 4 hours later at 2:30 pm.
[*]Dinner 3.5 hours later at 6:00 pm.
[*]Evening snack 3.5 hours later at 9:30 pm.

That looks like nearly perfectly spaced meals for the healthiest possible lifestyle.

 

[xanis]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: Queasy
Yep. Welcome to school over-crowding. The lunch rooms don't have enough room for all the kids at once so they end up having more lunch periods which makes lunch start earlier.

Did you move to Huntsville, AL?

From what I have seen it is NOT due to overcrowding so much as really poor building designs. I worked for a school district a few years ago and about half of the ~25 schools were that way. The enrollment was normal numbers but the lunchroom was the size of 2 or maybe 3 classrooms. There was no way to get a significant number of students in at a time.

The district is more to blame than anyone.

From what I've see, I definitely agree. The school district I was in built a second HS. The lunch room there was huge and could seat quite a large number of kids at once. On the other hand, my school, being around since the early 1950s, wasn't designed for a large number of kids. I live in a fairly rural area, so when it was built there weren't that many students.

 

[Injury]

Option A: All students get 20 minutes for lunch and only 1/3 of the students can have lunch at once. Lunch is from 11-12.
Problem: By the time some students get through the lunch line, they get only a few minutes to eat.

Option B: All students eat lunch at the same time. Lunch is from 11-12.
Problem: Lunch lines are really long... some students wait in line for close to 15-20 minutes, there are very few places to sit.

Option C: All students get a 30-40 minutes for lunch, students come in 3 or 4 waves, Lunch is from 10:30 to 12:30, depending on how many waves and length of lunch.
Problem: Lunch seems a bit early for some kids. No long lines and even if you're at the back of the line you get plenty of time to eat.



You chose.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: Queasy
Yep. Welcome to school over-crowding. The lunch rooms don't have enough room for all the kids at once so they end up having more lunch periods which makes lunch start earlier.

Did you move to Huntsville, AL?

From what I have seen it is NOT due to overcrowding so much as really poor building designs. I worked for a school district a few years ago and about half of the ~25 schools were that way. The enrollment was normal numbers but the lunchroom was the size of 2 or maybe 3 classrooms. There was no way to get a significant number of students in at a time.

The district is more to blame than anyone.

Well, overcrowding because of poor design/bad anticipation of enrollment. The county I live in in Georgia has gone through a pretty big population boom in the last decade and a half or so. The county has been opening schools up left and right but the growth has been so intense that the schools open up with those portable trailer classrooms to hold all the students because the school, as designed, can't. This results in more lunch periods.

The reason I asked the OP if he lives in Huntsville, Alabama (he has Huntsville in his profile but the state as Alberta and the country as United States) is because Huntsville also has gone through a massive population boom in the last decade+. My sister-in-law's niece moved from there two years ago to another town in Alabama because the school population exploded so much in Huntsville.

 

[looker001]

Originally posted by: Xanis

Originally posted by: looker001
In my High School lunch was between 12:00-12:45 for everyone

How big was your high school? Probably not big at all. There were 550 kids in my graduating class alone.

Not sure. BHHS

 

[Pacemaker]

at my high school 4th period was split into A lunch B lunch and C lunch. A Lunch went to lunch then to class for a hour. B Lunch went to class for 30 minutes then lunch then back to the same class for 30 minutes. C Lunch went to class for an hour then went to lunch. So your lunch was either 11-11:30, 11:30-12, or 12-12:30.

 

[rocadelpunk]

Imagine being a teacher and having half a class period, then the kids go to lunch and then the other half... : /. Tough to teach.

Anyway, most teachers are reasonable about allowing snacks in the classroom as they know there's a big difference between breakfast/lunch and lunch/dinner for some.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: rocadelpunk
Imagine being a teacher and having half a class period, then the kids go to lunch and then the other half... : /. Tough to teach.

Anyway, most teachers are reasonable about allowing snacks in the classroom as they know there's a big difference between breakfast/lunch and lunch/dinner for some.

we did a similar thing like that but had 5 lunches on 15 min intervals, meaning some classes had 15 min of class then 30 min lunch then 30 min class or 30 C - 30 lunch - 15 class

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: Queasy
Yep. Welcome to school over-crowding. The lunch rooms don't have enough room for all the kids at once so they end up having more lunch periods which makes lunch start earlier.

Did you move to Huntsville, AL?

From what I have seen it is NOT due to overcrowding so much as really poor building designs. I worked for a school district a few years ago and about half of the ~25 schools were that way. The enrollment was normal numbers but the lunchroom was the size of 2 or maybe 3 classrooms. There was no way to get a significant number of students in at a time.

The district is more to blame than anyone.

Well, overcrowding because of poor design/bad anticipation of enrollment. The county I live in in Georgia has gone through a pretty big population boom in the last decade and a half or so. The county has been opening schools up left and right but the growth has been so intense that the schools open up with those portable trailer classrooms to hold all the students because the school, as designed, can't. This results in more lunch periods.

The reason I asked the OP if he lives in Huntsville, Alabama (he has Huntsville in his profile but the state as Alberta and the country as United States) is because Huntsville also has gone through a massive population boom in the last decade+. My sister-in-law's niece moved from there two years ago to another town in Alabama because the school population exploded so much in Huntsville.

Expansion of the school can often play a part. Oftentimes what happens is that schools will expand the building in some way but not add anything other than classrooms. The result is that all the shared facilities (library, bathrooms, lunchroom, gym) have an extra burden. If the school was build with room for expansion it is not a problem, but usually it results in a mess.

 

[ElFenix]

we had ~2500 students and lunch started at 10:30 and lasted through 1, iirc. lunch periods were 20 minutes with 5 minutes of hallway time on either side of it. made for a really confusing bell schedule. the other problem was that it would often take nearly 20 minutes to get through the lunch line if you weren't there first.

 

[Finalnight]

I remember we had a very long 5th period. You would either have lunch at the start, split the period in the middle, or have it at the end. I think it ended up having a lunch range between 11:15 and 1:15.

 

[irishScott]

In my high school we had 4 half-hour lunch periods, 10:30 - 12:30. Classes started at 7:20.

 

[jiggahertz]

We had 3 different lunch hours, I think the first one was at 10:30. Of course, we also started at 7:15AM and had ~6000 kids.

 

[looker001]

Originally posted by: jiggahertz
We had 3 different lunch hours, I think the first one was at 10:30. Of course, we also started at 7:15AM and had ~6000 kids.

6000??? Wow, i feel sorry for the janitors at the end of school day. That is dam to early to start, our didn't start till 8:11 and i wish it would start even latter then that.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

thats normal.