Coronado is experiencing a lot of changes this semester, including a new rule stating that students are no longer allowed to have lunch outside of the cafeteria.
This rule has been introduced before for a week; however, this time the new rule is set for a longer time period. As school Principal Mrs. Arnell states, since last time, no eating outside policy has been tried out, “things stayed clean for a few days after.” Fortunately for all students who love having lunch outside and “it is not an annual thing.” Additionally, “we [school admin] do not have a specific date … we will re-look at things as the weather gets warmer next semester,” which is quite important with the weather getting colder over the last few weeks.
As for the reasons that encouraged administration to set a new rule, Mrs. Arnell mentioned that “many times, this fall administration would walk around and remind students to pick up after themselves. It would work a little, but there would still be bottles, trays, wrappers, etc. left around campus … We tried reminding students, but again the trash would still be left around the campus.”
As the result of the new rule, “there is much less trash being left around the building,” shared Mrs. Arnell, “there is an overall cleanliness to the grounds, and the little trash that does make it way around campus is able to be easily cleaned up.”
Surprisingly, students somewhat agree with the administration, owning their own mistakes and the fact that those mistakes need to be acknowledged. Mukhlisa Kodirova, Class of 2024, shared her thoughts regarding the new rule by stating that “There might be two reasons: first is that many, though not all students have not been cleaning after eating outside. Thus, to maintain the neatness of the school yard, having lunch outside might be ceased.” She considers weather conditions very important as those conditions “can leave students, who eat outside, under flu or other illnesses.”
However, Mukhlisa is only finding advantages from the newly set boundary, since she shared that “it actually opened me a door for forging new friendships which is obviously a positive impact.” Another interesting observation that Mukhlisa mentioned, “I was not able to socialize with considerable students before considering the fact that outside was huge enough for people to spread out. At the school building, for example in library, number of students increased during both lunches, and I can meet more people”.
Conversely, Genevieve Speer, Class of 2027, thinks that the newly introduced rule makes it hard to “find a seat in the lunchroom because of the amount of the people,” which forces her to finish lunch faster to be able to go outside. Genevieve also states that there are no specific seats or places she prefers to eat at, since most of the people “take what they see open and then everyone gets moved around,” which is why she would prefer sitting outside because “it is calmer and not as loud as inside the cafeteria.”
A new restriction encourages students to have lunch in cafeteria, but such places as the library or different club meetings during the lunch break will help students to be warmer during the winter season as well as help kids make new friends and find more opportunities.
