In the 2019-2020 school year, Liberty High School decided to switch up the lunches. What once was A, B, and C lunch is now Lunch 1 and Lunch 2. Liberty is at 1100 students this year, which means students now have less seating than last year. Teachers also brought attention to the fact that they didn’t like having a split class because it was hard to get things done. With that, students would get dismissed from class to go to A lunch, A lunch would then come back and B lunch would go, then B lunch would come back and C lunch would go. So all throughout the 4th period, you would hear roughly 6 bells.  So there were a couple of reasons why Liberty chose to go down to 2 lunches. 

“[There were] a couple of reasons. One [was that] we still share staff from West High, so we like to keep our schedule as close to one another. Last year they chose to change to two lunches,” said Justin Colbert, assistant principal at Liberty. 

Some students like the two lunches and others prefer having the three lunches. 

“I don’t like it because the line for lunch is so long. Some people don’t even get lunch, I know I haven’t been in the lunchroom since the first week of school,” said Jason Lang, senior. 

Lang has the first lunch, which is very packed. Students feel that the lunchroom is way too crowded and it is hard to find a seat.

“I feel that waiting in line for food, then looking to find a seat is really hard in the lunchroom because it is very crowded and it is very overpopulated,” said Dejuan Smith, senior. 

For many students, when the line is long at lunch, kids either wait to get lunch or they don’t eat at all. 

“Depending on the line, it will depend on if I eat it or not,” said Harlee Ehrman, sophomore. 

With the lunchroom packed, food running out on the first day of school, and a long line to get through, controversies have arisen as to whether switching to two lunches was a good idea or not.   Most teachers love the two lunches because it doesn’t interrupt classes like B lunch did last year. Students and teachers could only do some things for the first half of the class, go to lunch, and then come back. This resulted in a lot of students not wanting to focus back into their work coming from lunch, making many of them act rowdy. 

“[Staff] felt [that] it’s better for students and teachers to not have that split class so like last year and the years before that you would have to start that class twice. One of the most challenging things for students and teachers is the start of the class getting everything up and going,” said Colbert. 

Another reason for the switch was that the bell was disrupting the class. Last year, people heard six bells during lunch, so if kids were taking a test it could prove very distracting and make it hard to focus on their test. This year students and staff only hear three bells during lunch, which reduced a lot of distractions. 

“It is less disruption in classes, and [for] teachers [who had] B lunch, it was harder for them to do labs and tests and make it work. [E]ven if you don’t have lunch, you have to listen to the bells all throughout the class and for the kids taking a test who need a quiet environment, it was way more disruptive,” said Shishonee Hughes, a science teacher at liberty.

In conclusion, there are negative and positive sides of having only 2 lunches but in the long run, Liberty High will make the best decision they think will fit with students and staff.