Lines are a Mess

Students should be able to get their food quickly, safely

By Simon Huang

Let me tell you how much I hate waiting in the lunch line. One issue I have with the lunch line is that it’s crowded. It makes me uncomfortable from the number of people I am being surrounded by when I wait in line every day. If I was a claustrophobic I wouldn’t even go near the lunch line and make my own lunch at home, but I would’ve done that a long time ago if only I had the time to make myself lunch.

I don’t even have the money to buy my own lunch and the school’s lunch is my only option to get something to eat for free. One time when I was waiting in the lunch line, someone behind me pickpocketed me and I didn’t notice. My clipper card was stolen and I always kept it inside my backpack in the small pocket in front of my backpack which was easy to open while standing behind me. I can’t believe how easy it was to have things stolen from me while standing in the lunch line.

What pisses me off the most is when I have to wait in line for lunch and some students would cut in line rather than wait in line. This happens way too often and it’s impossible for the security guards to catch all of those who cut. Sometimes other students would just push through the line to get ahead or just to be near a friend.

I feel like the solution to the lunch line is to have people who want lunch sit at the lunch tables. Then a security guard calls out a table or more, and the people sitting at the tables that were called on will get up and get their lunch. Once the students get their lunch, another set of tables will be called on and those students who got their lunch will get to sit down and finish their lunch or finish their lunch outside the cafeteria.

Students that aren’t seated are able to sit down after a student gets up to get their lunch. After a student finishes their lunch while sitting at the lunch table they should get up to give other students a seat to sit and wait to be called on. Rinse. Repeat. Once the majority of people have gotten their lunch it’s safe to go get your lunch without having to sit on the table. I know this isn’t a perfect solution, but I definitely think that the lunch line needs to have a way to be more organized and faster.

Officer Campbell, a campus security guard working at Skyline High School for two years, gives his input on what he thinks about the school’s lunch line. “I like how the line is efficient enough with how the line is set up with the chains to keep students in line, but it’s very crowded with only one line for the whole school. It would be better to have two lines instead of one, but the school is going to have to remodel the cafeteria because it isn’t fit for more than one line,” he said.

The lunch line would benefit with having a second lunch line. It would make the line less congested which makes the traffic in the line smoother and serving students faster. I hope that the school will think of a way to improve the lunch line since it’s been a problem for a while. The second lunch line could be placed parallel to the other lunch line, but the lunch tables would have to be rearranged in order to make room for the second lunch line.