Students propose off-campus lunch

The Student Advisory Board recently submitted a proposal to the Matanuska Susitna Borough School District School Board requesting that Valley high schools be allowed off-campus lunches.

In order for the SAB’s resolution to have a possibility of being passed, there had to be a criteria for which high school students would be allowed these lunch privileges. The requirements would include: parental consent, students must have a GPA of 3.25 or higher, students must have a special ID that they present before exiting campus, students must sign in and out, and only juniors and seniors would be allowed this privilege.

The SAB also noted other pros for this resolution such as students would become motivated to get better grades, a flux of GPA would result in parental re-consent, students would be on their own insurance, and a three-tardy build-up to class after lunch would result in a semester loss of the privilege.

Due to the SAB’s resolution, Valley high school principals engaged in discussion about the pros and cons.

The positive remarks for off-campus lunch would be that students would be able to exercise their views in a professional manner, and that fewer lunches would be needed to serve. Some negative aspects were that administration would not be able to accurately monitor which students were eligible to leave.

Colony High School has roughly 1,250 enrolled students and although the SAB proposal insists that eligible students be required to present a specified pass, it must be taken into consideration that the passes would need to be frequently updated, passes may not be used adequately by the specific student and furthermore, administration would need to check the hundreds of passes presented everyday.

Cyd Duffin, principal of Colony High School said, “My number one concern is student safety. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, but it greatly worries me that students would leave campus, get in a hurry, and get into car wrecks out there on the slippery roads. Thirty minutes is really not enough time to get anywhere and back in time for class.”

The concern of student safety and the lack of facilities was another topic discussed within the principals’ meeting. It is for schools like Colony that are not surrounded by restaurants and stores for which this con greatly applies.

The overall point is that 30 minutes is simply not enough time for students to safely drive anywhere and return back to school on time.

However, high schools like Palmer have a combined advisory and lunch for an hour of free campus roaming.

Unlike Colony, Palmer has about 800 students and one lunch. Due to Colony’s extra 450 kids there must be two lunches for accommodation. It was eight years ago when Colony tried to combine lunch and advisory.

The schedule was A lunch, then Advisory, then B lunch.

However, what resulted was total chaos, with all 1,250 kids taking an extra lunch for an hour and a half break in the middle of the day.

Freshman Kendra McPhail, member of the SAB explained, “There are many high school students that support our resolution, but with the large disapproval from the principals, I am not sure what will happen.”

While the SAB’s resolution has excellent requirements and intent all aspects must be considered when making the final decision.

Casey Branch is a sophomore at Colony High School.