Lunch is by far the most crowded time of the school day. People are walking around in groups to get a table, and people are running around trying to get food before they run out of their favorite drinks and sandwiches.

Groups of people frantically trying to get food and find tables inside the building away from the heat creates huge crowds of people that are sometimes immovable.

Crowds from C and D wing make it harder for people in A and B wing to get through, making the halls hectic and crammed together. With hundreds of kids rushing to get to the same place, the lunchroom is constantly loud and difficult to navigate.

Not only do the large crowds of teenagers cause issues, but the lack of chairs and tables inside cause chaos. Many people are forced to sit outside in the miserable heat because of the fact that there aren’t enough seats inside.

Fights and arguments tend to break out when chairs and tables are stolen from others, and nobody seems to have an understanding of what to do in this situation. This is an active occurrence in both A and B lunches, and is most apparent in the beginning of the school year.

Many are wondering wether or not this issue will be resolved. Instead of having a period to relax, eat, and de-stress after classes, it becomes a hub for stressful situations and rude encounters with other students. Many argue that there is nothing that we as a school can do about these problems, but one could argue against that statement.

For starters, some can all learn to be more polite and courteous towards one another. Instead of taking chairs from other students tables, asking politely and in a calm manner can take you a long way.

Some actions that Verrado High School could take to lessen the amount of crowds during Lunch is releasing the wings periodically. Every single class being let out when the lunch bell rings is too much all at once, and there has to be some sort of system in place for how we do things during lunch.

Being allowed to sit in empty classrooms could help immensely with lowering the amount of teens in the lunchroom. The halls that are emptied for lunch contain many empty classrooms that could be utilized for lunch tables.

The small and big gym could also be a good place to put extra tables and seating areas during lunchtime. The gyms (especially the small gym) typically aren’t occupied during lunch and could provide a great place for kids to eat lunch as long as it gets cleaned up after lunch has ended, as it can be a hazard to leave food on the ground when there is practice or sports happening in the gym. Sometimes, it is just simply necessary to use empty spaces in the school for issues like this.

Of course, not every issue can be resolved by complaining to the school board, so this is a problem that can and should be solved ourselves. At the end of the day, a table is a table and a chair is a chair. It is completely unnecessary to steal people’s chairs and tables, and we have to be responsible and learn not to crowd the lunchroom.