During lunch periods, it has become exceedingly difficult to maneuver around the cafeteria in order to simply get food.

Every day when I leave my fifth period class in order to go to B lunch, I dread the long lines I’ll have to wait in to get my food, all the while being bumped and walked into. Not only is this annoying, but it also leaves unlucky students with far less time to eat lunch than is necessary to finish their entire meal without greatly rushing.

I can’t count how many times I have heard students complain about getting rammed by someone’s lunch tray or having their food coughed on in the tightly packed areas. 

All of these issues are caused by a failure to properly organize the lunchroom in order for easy access to food, trays and other items such as drinks and fruit.

For starters, the trays in the cafeteria are stored underneath the counters where students get their food, causing students who need to get a tray to have to attempt to squeeze between those who are trying to get their food.  This could be fixed by simply putting the trays somewhere else, such as at the entrance to the area where students get their food. This fix would make it so that students could grab trays on the way into the area and not have to worry about weaving through the crowd just to grab a tray.

Another cause for chaos at lunch is the fact that the various consumable items are strewn around the food gathering area in a manner that means once students get their tray and main food item, they have to backtrack through the crowd to then get their required milk and fruit or vegetables. This problem could be fixed by organizing the cafeteria so that the locations for fruits and milk are along the general path students take to get the main food item, allowing students to grab them on their way through and proceed to checkout.

All of the fixes previously mentioned would also help with the total organization of the cafeteria. The first fix would allow students to go straight into getting their food instead of needing to acquire a tray first. My second recommendation would allow students to flow through the lines without faltering and grab whatever they need along the way, rather than backtracking and causing large crowds of people all headed in different directions.

Overall, the AAHS lunchrooms need to be reorganized in a variety of ways in order to allow the lunch process to be more fluid.