Since the beginning of this school year, high school students have become familiar with lengthy and chaotic lunch lines. Administrators stepped in to bring order, but students still aren’t sure the fix will last.
Within a week or two of the new school year, herds of highschoolers jammed in front of lunch windows became routine. Large swarms of students cut the line to slice a few minutes off their wait times. As the issue gained prominence, so did student complaints about them.
“It’s pretty chaotic, very slow. I feel like I wait there five minutes and I haven’t moved an inch,” said Aabha Timalsina (‘28) familiar with long lunch lines. “Mostly because like 50 other people have mysteriously appeared in front of me.”
These lengthy queues can harm a student’s ability to socialize with friends, attend clubs, and, of course, eat.
“[Lunch lines] can be 30-40 percent of my lunch time,” Aabha Timalsina noted, which leads to students trying to get their lunch as quickly as possible. “If you don’t cut, you’re not making it to the front.”
Luckily, administrators also quickly caught wind of the problem. Due to their presence in the cafeteria and numerous reminders, the lunch lines improved. Wait times were cut down, and cutting became increasingly rare.
“Scholars were coming and saying, ‘right when lunch starts, everyone wants to fly to the front of the lines, and there’s no order,’” recounted Principal Steitz. “They said it would be helpful to have an administrator and keep everyone in line…so we made the decision to be at the beginning of the lunch blocks just to make sure that the lines stay in order.”
Students in both high school and middle school, where the issue is less prevalent, have stressed the difference.
“When the administrator’s there, it’s a straight line, but when no one’s there, it’s like a blob,” commented Eric Chen (‘32).
He also worries about being entirely dependent on administrator regulation.
“Unless he stays there for the rest of the year every lunch saying don’t cut, then lines might look like circles again.”
His concern was justified during a recent lunch without administrator oversight, where queues were noticeably slower.
Thankfully, Dr. Steitz stated that he plans on continuing to supervise lunches. He also emphasized the need for student expectation.
“It’s helpful that we continue to be there every day. That creates an expectation that you’re supposed to line up like that. It may not be as orderly if we didn’t show up today, but it won’t be as bad as prior,” expressed Principal Steitz.
While the expectation has not been verbalized yet, Dr. Steitz believes there should be one, which would help students move towards self-regulation.
“Maybe through our advisory classes, we can challenge our scholars next semester and say in a few weeks we’re going to test you on how well you can line up at lunchtime. Everything you do with scholars, you have to tell them how it’s supposed to be done, when it sounds like, what it looks like, what it feels like…once they have that expectation, they’ll start to do it.”
Lunch line chaos may not be solved, but with administrator oversight and eventually scholar accountability, Preuss hopes its cafeteria will look more like a line than a blob.