Approximately 350 students in Bethpage High School buy lunch. Some students like buying lunch so they don’t have to bring lunch to school, but they also don’t want to wait on the lines. The lunch lines take a long time, which wastes students’ free time in the cafeteria with their friends, or needing to be somewhere else. There should be a change on how Bethpage High School regulates its lunch lines.

Currently, students here have lunch accounts parents can put money into, and students can buy lunch through their lunch account under their student ID. This works fast enough for students instead of cash. Bethpage High School also gives lunch passes to students. These passes will let students cut the line, buy lunch, and is mostly considered a late note to class. This pass is for students who have no lunch, or alternate day lunch periods.

Special Education teacher Ms. Feyrer said “some of my students buy lunch during my 6th period English class and they missed more than 5 minutes of class.” This has made some think of creating a line called the “Lunch Pass Express Line.” The purpose of this line would be to present a lunch pass to the lunch ladies and then they can serve you with any lunch they have that day. This would be a significant improvement on the lunch lines because some students have class and they have a limited amount of time to buy their lunch. This improvement would also prevent cutters in line, which will make the regular lines run faster.

Some students also cut the line from inside the kitchen near the doors, or getting on the deli line to cut into the daily line. Both of these are rude to the students who don’t cut the line. The monitors in the hallway sometimes pay attention to the line cutters, but sometimes they don’t. Some possible solutions for this problem is to have signs that say “no cutting lines,” or having another monitor watch in the kitchen between the two doors. ”

Additionally, Earth Science teacher Ms. D’Alleva thinks “having another lunch period would shorten up the lunch lines.” In Bethpage High School, there are three periods of lunch, but in JFK Middle School, there are four periods of lunch, even though they have less students and only one cafeteria. The High School has two cafeterias and more students. Having another lunch period would also help students who didn’t have enough breakfast in the morning. This improvement would also benefit the jobs to the lunch ladies serving lunch to the students.

Some students say “there should be more lunch ladies who can serve us.” Sometimes there are two lunch ladies serving lunch on the daily and the deli line, which is a good improvement for the students and the lunch ladies, but there should be more so it can speed up the process for serving the students.

Mr. Tocco says “the lunch lines get long because some periods have more students than others, and it depends on what’s being served for that day.”

The head of the school’s lunch program said “improving the lunch lines would work but it won’t be an easy solution.” This is because it has to go through steps and the course association before these improvements may go into action for the next school year. We hope that Bethpage High School will look forward for making the lunch lines better for the students.