Counterpoint (Wahid Ishrar): Confusions, confusions

As the 2012-2013 school year begins at Walter Johnson High School, students and staff are faced with a major change in the lunch policy.

The declaration of lunch as a separate fifth period creates unnecessary confusion for all the students. Juniors and seniors, who are accustomed to calling current “Period six” as “Period five”, will take some time to adjust to the new schedule. The underclassmen, who look up to the upperclassmen for leading their high school lives, will be confused listening to lunch being called “Period 5” from the administration and “Lunch” from their role models. Even teachers who have been teaching here for years will be confused on whether to call their afternoon classes Period 5 or Period 6 and so on.

An even bigger change that has occurred is the policy that states that students will not be able to eat in the second and ground floors of the school unless they are with a teacher in their rooms. The only floor available for eating in is the first floor, which includes the cafeteria and student commons as large student accommodations during lunch.

However, as winter approaches, more and more students will migrate indoors instead of using the open lunch facilities, which will create an overflow of students on the first floor. The noise levels will be up and hallway congestion will inevitably become a major issue.

Also, students taking make-up tests during lunch on the first floor may have a hard time concentrating due to the noise levels. Principal Jennifer Baker has not yet looked into whether or not the teachers taking make-up tests are being disturbed by the noise levels, but has stated that she will do so soon.

Another group that has not been considered is students who want to eat their lunch in quiet spaces. Since the lunch spaces have been reduced by two-thirds, there is virtually no space left to eat your lunch without loud groups being inches away, unless you are accompanied by a teacher.

Overall, the changes in the lunch policy confuse some, disturb some and leave some wanting peace and quiet.

Counter Point (Anders Norberg): The truth behind lunch

The recent changes to the lunch policy which include lunch being added as a period and being limited to the first floor are strange and many wonder what caused these adjustments. According to Principal Jennifer Baker this change occurred because, in previous years, after lunch, the halls were commonly filled with garbage. Building services frequently had to clean it up on all three floors in every single area. Since students decided not to pick up their trash in previous years we are limited this year to one floor. Now for us students it seems unfair, but it makes building services workers’ jobs much easier and allows for much cleaner halls. That being said, students can actually eat on any of the three floors as long as they are with a teacher.

A common argument against the changes is that the first floor will be too cluttered when wintertime rolls around and more students stay in instead of going out. The truth is that the first floor can actually hold all students comfortably within the halls. There are a lot of different areas around the first floor to eat and hang out in, and even with all of the student body the first floor there won’t be a cluttering problem.

Another minor change has caused major annoyance for many students is lunch becoming 5th period, but this change is not from Baker or the school at all. The decision was made by the county for all schools to make lunch a period. This is because not all schools have one lunch period for all grades and therefore have to give them periods to keep everything organized. They wanted this to be uniform countywide. This also matches the schedules for the teachers that are listed as eight periods a day.

One problem that caused this change is the only thing preventing the system from returning to its former glory. Students left their trash all over the ground last year with no regard for who had to clean it up.  If students were to clean up their own trash then there would be no issue at all and we could eat wherever we wanted to. So unless we, the students of WJ, actually clean up our own messes we will not get our old lunch system back. Baker said she is not opposed to changing the new policy, but for such a change to be made students need to start taking responsibility for their trash.