Sound Off: Will the One Lunch Pilot be a success or a failure?
Isabella Gillette, reporter
The school’s plan to pilot one lunch for the entire school sounds like an insane idea. 1,811 students all out at lunch at once sounds a bit like chaos. Many students split between lunches to prevent a possible fight due to built up problems and/or different situations. When I attended the blue school last year they had one lunch. For the most part, it ran well, but the difference in campus and number of students is a major component to account for. The blue school’s quad (where most kids went for lunch) was a large area that everyone could mostly fit in. Manteca’s quad and lunch area is smaller. Manteca High school is about 2 ½ acres smaller than the blue school. Compared to square feet, an acre is 43,560 square feet (about half the area of a Manhattan city block). So, 2 ½ is a very big difference. Also, the large number of kids will be difficult for staff to manage and to make sure safety is a top priority for every student. The number of students is less than Manteca, the blue school has 1,630 students total which is 181 fewer students to keep up with. In my opinion, this one lunch concept wouldn’t work for Manteca High.
Stephany Medina, reporter
A trial run of having a single lunch will occur April 2-5. Having one lunch will cause new issues to arise. Manteca’s campus will experience congestion, on and off campus. Lines in the cafeteria to grab lunch will be extensive. Local businesses will have a surplus of students at lunch, creating the probability that more students will be late to class. Creating a surge of tardies and creating more of a headache for the administration to handle. Furthermore, this increases the chance of students vandalizing local businesses. Previously, Pizza guys stopped serving slices, due to littering. There is a greater chance of this occurring, by uniting students, that otherwise would have been separated Which forces business to shut down at lunch, reducing the number of options students will have at lunch. Overall, having one lunch appears to have more negatives than positives.
Dario Rodriguez, reporter
I believe one lunch will be successful. However, I don’t believe it will be as smooth of a transition as we want it to be. Other schools that are part of MUSD participate in one lunch and I have many friends from East Union and Sierra that like having one lunch. However, those campuses are very open and have more available space for one lunch. MHS, although it is a large school, isn’t a large enough campus. Sierra houses 1,630 total students, East Union houses 1,641 students, Manteca houses 1,834 students. So, we would have to house 200 more students with 18% less campus space. I think the one lunch attempt will be a shock to people, but I don’t think one week is enough time to properly test how this effect students and staff around campus.
Gabriel Martinez, reporter
One lunch including all students will result in failure. I firmly believe this because everyone will be overwhelmed, including cafeteria staff, campus monitors, administration, and the students themselves. Also, with over 1800 students on campus, students will get their lunch slower, and chaos is bound to ensue from restless students being crammed in one lunch. It is difficult to imagine admin and faculty around campus preventing 1800 students from getting involved in anything bad like a fight, or possible usage/distribution of drugs. Ultimately, the experimental one lunch will result in a failure, and MHS will revert to separate lunches for the 2024-25 school year.
Bryan Jimenez, reporter
In my opinion, I believe that the one lunch trial will be a failure. It can cause more traffic throughout the student parking lot and create bigger crowds in the cafeteria. As well as can create more strain on campus monitors and making it much more difficult to maintain peace throughout campus. A single lunch allows for multiple large groups to form, making it more difficult for hall monitors to keep track of them. This can bring a surge of fights, which will be difficult to break up. Local businesses will also have a lot of people coming, which could cause more tardies, and cause more garbage. It could cause the business to shut down during school lunch.
Isiah White, reporter
I feel like the school lunch situation is going to be a failure because I feel like it’s going to be overwhelming for the staff and even the students. Counting the fact there are 1800 students that are on campus, our school ground is not that big nether. I feel like this is a bad idea because the hall monitors will be overwhelmed with all the people they half to watch, it would be ten times more stressful with every student at lunch there really aren’t any pros to this new lunch thing besides kids being able to see their friends. But for the staff it will certainly be something that won’t be a thing for long and as we continue to try to pass this new lunch thing, I feel like it’s going to be a disaster. With all these kids running around and the student parking lot is also going to be problem students are going to be in a hurry to get out and its going to cause many problems possibly accidents or people getting their cars damaged and many more cons to the parking lot and as we look at the possibility’s more problematic things come with this and I think it will be a failure and we should just stay with the lunch schedule we have now because it’s way more efficient and less stressful in my book and won’t be crowed when it comes to lunch cause halls will be full of students.
Nora Hystad, Reporter
Having only one lunch at Manteca High could lead to numerous issues and conflicts on campus. With a large number of students congregating in one lunch period, overcrowding and limited space could heighten tensions and increase the likelihood of fights breaking out. Additionally, longer lines and wait times at food service areas may frustrate students, exacerbating potential conflicts. Furthermore, a single lunch period may strain resources and staff supervision, making it difficult to effectively monitor and address behavioral issues. This could create a chaotic and unsafe environment for students and staff alike. Implementing multiple lunch periods allows for better crowd control, reduces congestion, and provides more opportunities for students to socialize and eat comfortably. Therefore, having only one lunch period at Manteca High is not advisable due to the increased risk of fights and problems on campus.
Saffron Bland, reporter
I believe that the one lunch schedule will not be successful. From my point of view, the school and its staff will be overwhelmed with the number of students. There will be way too long of a line in the cafeteria. The off-campus places to go during lunch will be too packed to go and get food let alone go back in time before the bell rings. Most of the school will be overfilled and there will most likely be multiple fights. Other schools in our district have a single lunch, but they have far fewer students. For example, East Union has 1,641 students, while we have 1,864 students so East Union doesn’t have enough students to make two lunches. We also do not have enough campus monitors to check people's off-campus passes, so it will most likely take a lot longer than normal to get off campus not to mention it already takes a long to get off with the online passes because many of the monitors have to touch the phone to make sure it isn’t a screen recording and the Wi-Fi isn’t very good here.