The following quotes are from students and teachers voicing their opinions on the recent changes made to the lunch schedule:
“I just want to go back to the regular SMART lunch… so I can see all my friends.” – Kamari Barnes, 9th
“It affects the ability to have students come to my club, Black Student Union… it becomes this dichotomy between who can drive to school and who can’t.” – Nadia Molina, 12th
“I’ll be late to third period every day. I’m taking a Durham Tech class so now I’ll be 20-25 minutes late.” – Sophie Ganter, 12th grade
“This makes it harder for people who have to seek tutoring.” – Elijah Bethel, 10th
“Personally I think it’s a weird way to cut the times just because of a fight… They are trying to protect us but I don’t think it’s going to change anything.” – Raya Agborbesong, 9th
“There was no teacher or parent involvement in the decision yesterday.” – Mira Prater, English teacher
“I feel like we should be having SMART lunch and penalize the people that were getting in trouble.” – Nnamdi Ogboko, 11th
“There was essentially a stampede. Ms. Watson had to push my back against the wall.” [referring to an incident on Thursday] – Mira Prater, English teacher
“For me, it’s really not that big of a deal. I’m still getting my time to do work or missing assignments or whatever I need to do.” – Armando Morales, 9th
“My high school had the pilot version of what SMART lunch is when I was in high school, and I know that temporarily there would be times when we would lose it because of fights or other various disruptions. And it’s definitely a big liability so I understand from a legal standpoint completely how she understands and sets up lunch to be the three-lunch system. But I know that this is not an easy decision because it obviously affects so many people.” – Laura Brady, English teacher
“The imposition of collective punishment for individual action is against article 87 of the Geneva Convention.” – Alexander Penn, 12th
“There’s still some details that we have to work out, how we are going to do clubs and things like that, but it was a little calmer I must say [on if the new plan will address the fighting]… I do know if we don’t have the whole school population out at one time, just from the number game [fighting] should be happening less.” – David Robinson, CTE teacher
“I don’t have friends here.” – Yvaiyoyio Kizilo, 10th
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What is a smart lunch?