Thought 20-minute lunches weren’t enough time? Try 18 minutes on Mondays. With the new lunch schedule introduced this year, students are not happy. Advisement is now its own class, and lunch is separated into first, second, and third lunch.
Landyn Sedam, who has second lunch said, “I don’t like it because if you’re doing work in your 5th period class it gets cut off by lunch.”
Our new principal Dr. Bruce said, “Our current bell schedule is modeled after the schedule at Thomas Jefferson. With the shortened schedule on Mondays, this concession was made in order to allow the same amount of passing period time while keeping instructional time at a maximum.”
Dr. Bruce also said, “I do think 18 minutes is enough time to eat lunch. While I understand it may not seem like a long time, there have been no issues with students having enough time to eat. Students just need to ensure they get in the cafe line and then be efficient with their time to eat, as opposed to prioritizing socializing.”
However, while there is no legal minimum time requirement for lunch in Iowa Schools, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends at least 20 minutes of actual eating time, not including time spent in line.
Perhaps a simple solution would be to expand the amount of lunch time, get rid of one of the lunches, go back to the original lunch schedules, etc. One of our teachers here at Abraham Lincoln has a solution of his own.
“I don’t have all of the information to make the decision, but my suggestion would be two lunch periods,” Social studies teacher Peter Kilburg said. “My suggestion is to have two 30-minute lunch periods to get all of the kids through with a 10 minute buffer period between lunches for the staff to clean up and prepare. I think 20 minutes is a very short period to eat, and I often just use that time to plan, run school errands, or complete coaching-adjacent tasks. With a 30-minute lunch period, I would be more likely to utilize my actual time to eat lunch, and I think it could benefit kids as well to not have to rush to eat.”
It seems to be that everyone thinks not just 20, but 18 minutes is not enough time to eat lunch. Both students and teachers shared how the new lunch schedule affects their classes. So why not just go back to the way it was and keep things simple? Everyone seems to like it that way.
