Rocky Mountain High School is “open campus” during lunch, meaning that students can eat lunch on campus, or can leave and get food from local restaurants and stores. Most students of Rocky go out and get fast food for lunch; some students stay at school. But for those who go out and eat, do they really have time to drive to a restaurant, get their food, and eat it during the 40-minute lunch period?  If the school lunches were longer, students would have more time to eat and mentally relax before going to the next class. 

Kirk Steffensen is a Special Education teacher at Rocky and he gets to “relax” during lunch.  

 “I think some of the benefits could be where students and/or teachers would have more time to get food. If it is a longer lunch, well then, you’re going to be in school a lot longer, meaning lunch [could] start at 11, end at 12, meaning you will not get out of school until around 3:30, so there is a give and take there.”  

Some students might be fine with staying until 3:30pm, but others may not.

Steffensen said, “I think it is early, but  it seems like that the only way we could get all our requirements in is we could have 3 class periods, then lunch.”  

Jacey, a Rocky student, usually stays in the building for lunch, but here is her opinion about our lunch. She says a longer lunch would be nice: “Just to detox from all the school, because we have classes from 7:40 all the way to 2:30.”  

 “I usually eat lunch around 11 or 12. We have lunch around 10:40 [and] it is a little bit early.” 

That is how just a few of the students at Rocky see lunch and how they feel about it. There are pros and cons to a longer lunch period, but as of now, the lunch schedule will probably remain the same for the next school year.