The morning announcements recently revealed a rule stating that the cafeteria stops serving breakfast at 8:45 a.m. when the first bell rings, and that students may not come in to get breakfast. The only exception to this rule is students arriving on a late bus.
The school cafeteria should not stop serving breakfast at the first bell.
The school should not be able to prevent a student from eating. Students, especially growing high schoolers that participate in things like sports and after school activities, need meals to get through the day. If they are not permitted to eat, this can discourage them and cause them to be tired and hungry, since energy comes from food. This harms their education and their ability to learn and can also result in more students sleeping in classes or simply not having the energy to pay attention to lectures or finish their assignments.
It is not fair to students who arrive late to school that don’t take the bus. Everyone has off days, everyone is late at least once or twice. The school should not use food as a reward for being on time, everyone deserves to eat. There are many students who have to walk to school or have someone drive them and it’s unfair to expect them to not have a day they sleep in late or their ride doesn’t make it on time. Parents must be taken into consideration as well as some students rely on them to get to school and some students must drop their siblings off at elementary or middle school, these students have responsibilities and may not make it on time. They should not be punished if it is not their fault.
A school in a low socioeconomic area like Mac, with 82% belonging to minority groups and 58% of students being economically disadvantaged according to USNews.com, families that send their students here are likely on a tight-budget or don’t have access to food at home, so they depend on the school provided meals. These kids should not be starved because they arrived a few minutes after the first bell, not even the tardy bell.
The kids that skip and wander the halls before and during the first period are not cool, but punishing everyone, especially those in need, for their actions is not right. The students who skip and who are constantly tardy on purpose are really only harming their own individual educations and futures, but the school taking away breakfast for everyone puts more students at risk of failure. Although they can be seen as a disruption, at this point it’s between a disruption and students’ health.
Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day and high school students who are growing up need to be able to eat before having to sit at a desk and listen to lectures for eight hours. The cafeteria should not have to stop serving breakfast at 8:45 a.m. and the school should not have this as a rule. They should go back to serving until at least 9 a.m. or even last year’s cut off time of 9:30 a.m.
