Lily Monigold - Writer Open-campus lunch at a high school allows students to leave the building during lunch break. This way they can access food from somewhere else, like a fast food place, a restaurant, or at home. For example, in France many of the kids have a two-hour lunch break and they can go eat somewhere else during this time. The rules for this differ from school to school. For instance, some schools allow all high school students to do this, while other high schools only permit juniors and seniors. Like anything else, having open-campus lunch as an option to students has both its pros and cons. A positive of having open-campus lunch for students is that it gives them more variety and choices for their lunches. If kids wanted to have something else besides sack lunch or school lunch, they could. Having the opportunity to eat at home during the day gives students the chance to eat lunch with family if they are at home. Also, leaving school for a short period of time during the day gives you a bit of a break from being at school so that when you come back, you’re more focused and ready to learn. To continue, teachers can encourage students to work harder in school by having lunch off-campus be a reward. They could make it so it’s only allowed to students with a certain grade-point average, no detentions, limited tardies, or other things for students to aim for. Having this as a reward helps students celebrate their accomplishments in the classroom as well. Also, it provides more support to local businesses near the school. This helps them stay open and busy. Off-campus lunch teaches students time management. They have to figure out if they have enough time to go to certain places to eat and make sure they return back to school on time. There are many benefits to having open-campus lunch, so it may leave you wondering why all schools don’t offer it. However, there can be drawbacks as well. For instance, there are some risks involved. Traveling in bigger cities may cause fatalities from car accidents or other accidents that might occur. For example, the West Hemstead school district in Nassau, New York had two students die in a car crash while off-campus for lunch. To continue, leaving school for lunch gives students a chance to not come back to school and to skip classes. If it is a beautiful day and you’re eating outside at the park with your friends, would you want to go back to assignments and tests indoors? This leaves students more tempted to skip school. Additionally, a lot of lunch breaks at school aren’t long enough to give kids enough time to be able to travel to a restaurant or home and eat. This could make it very hard to fit everything in and to get back to school in time. Also, students may not be eating very healthy if they decide not to eat at home. With the option to go to various fast food places and restaurants, before you know it you are eating something unhealthy almost every day during the school week. However, most school lunches offer multiple fruit and vegetable options. There are benefits and drawbacks to both sides. While having open-campus lunch can greatly benefit some students by giving them more freedom and time to de-stress from school, for other students it could turn out to be a negative experience for them. Their safety and health may end up at risk. The multiple different outcomes for students gives schools a lot to think about; to have open-campus school lunch for high school students or to not? Sources: https://connectusfund.org/9-primary-pros-and-cons-of-open-campus-lunch https://www.mlive.com/opinion/kalamazoo/2008/10/should_high_schools_have_open.html https://grownandflown.com/teens-allowed-open-campus-lunch/ STUDENT OPINIONS
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