Jasmine Lee

Students at Los Al wait in a line to receive free lunch.

LOS ALAMITOS, CA — As a shrill bell rings into the eardrums of the students of Los Al in order to signal the end of fourth period, thousands of students frantically pour out of their classes in search of friends, food, and leisure. As hunger grows at Los Al, there are three major ways for students to acquire lunch: bringing lunch from home, receiving free lunch from the cafeteria and the kiosks, or leaving campus to visit popular fast food restaurants on the outskirts of the school. However, it seems that problems tend to arise due to long lunch lines on campus and the common habit of cutting the line. All this shortens the already brief 30-minute lunch period.

The four lunch kiosks and the cafeteria on campus offer accessible lunch, prepared by Los Al’s hard-working chefs and lunch ladies. A major issue among students has arisen, in which massive herds of students cut the lines in order to avoid a long and unappealing wait time. Due to this excessive line-cutting, many students in the back are forced to wait longer for their lunch.

“It’s messed up when you’re at the back of the line and a bunch of people start cutting the line when they see their friend. It makes me and everyone else have to wait more, and it makes lunch super short, even though it’s already short [enough],” said Ava Friedman, a junior who regularly buys lunch.

The constant habit of students cutting the line rather than waiting also translates to shorter lunch periods. At Los Al, lunch is a total of 30 minutes, which seems like enough time for students to eat their meal. In addition, the whole process of leaving class, entering line, waiting, and receiving lunch while walking to a designated lunch spot robs students of their free time during the rigorous school day.

This can prove difficult for students who have classes stationed far away from the potential places to receive lunch and those who heavily depend on school lunch. 

Ava Lealiiee, a junior at LosAl said, “Sometimes, the line gets really frustrating, [especially] with the fact that the more wait time there is, the less time I can talk to my friends. I don’t mind waiting, but sometimes it’s not even worth trying because I just want to see my friends”.

A common solution that has risen among students who depend on school lunch has been to wait until the end of lunch to check in at the booths, in search of food without long lines.

To clarify, this solution is riddled with problems, as students have to spend the majority of their lunch period waiting for the long lines to clear out, while remaining hungry. Also, there remains no guarantee that any lunch items will be available to students at the end of lunch due to the limited amount.

This raises the ultimate question, “How can Los Al fix this problem?” These problems are bound to continue inside a high school that contains thousands of students. But in order to control the lines, a lunch monitor could be appointed to manage the lines in an orderly fashion. A more appealing idea among students would be to extend the lunch period to relieve students from this common stress.

“It’s inconsistent around campus because there [are] so many different stands and people. It varies on how much cutting there is [every day],” said junior Layla Mohanna. “But I think extending lunch would maybe make it better but that sounds difficult to do.”

The issues of cutting would be somewhat resolved if students were given a longer period of time to wait and receive their lunch. Yet it seems these problems are difficult to resolve due to Los Al’s vast size, so students should brace themselves to continue waiting in these crowded lunch lines.