Imagine walking down to the cafeteria, arriving to the table you always sit at, and some random kid is sitting right in your seat. That’s currently a problem in the cafeteria at Nonnewaug, and some students aren’t happy about it.
“No one can find seats,” says freshman Catherine Viveros.
Finding someone to sit at lunch is already stressful enough for students. Now, students worry about finding a place to sit.
Sometimes when the semesters change, anyone with a half-credit elective for their Period 5 or 6 will have to switch lunch waves because their classes are changing. This year, the administrators decided to switch the two Period 6 journalism classes from third to second wave, too.
“When the administrators set up the lunch waves, they try to keep departments together to have lunch,” explains Ellie Bruce, Nonnewaug’s lunch and hall monitor.
Suzi Greene, Nonnewaug’s interim assistant principal, set up the lunch waves so the classes in each academic department can be together. This is because she finds that it’s important for the teachers in each department to have lunch together.
“When teachers are just kind of sitting around talking, that’s where really good exchange of ideas occurs,” says Greene.
While it may be helpful for the teachers, students don’t feel the same way.
Students in second-wave lunch, like Viveros, find it annoying that they changed the journalism lunch waves because of how packed it is.
“My lunch wave before was peaceful, calm and I actually had a consistent table to sit at that no one was trying to steal,” says Viveros. “Changing the lunch waves [of the journalism classes] feels so unnecessary.”
Even students in wave three lunch, like freshman Gemma Hedrei, disagree with the change.
“Now there’s at least five tables completely empty and very few people are in our lunch wave,” says Hedrei, “A bunch of my friends had to leave it, so now I sit with way less people.”
But, soon enough the problem may be solved for waves one and two lunches. The warm weather will allow students to sit outside, and there will be plenty of space for everybody.
“I just hope there aren’t any bees,” says Greene.
