Everyday at 11:53 everybody races to get to the cafeteria first. At New Providence High School all grades have lunch at the same time during a 50 minute lunch period. Within that period there is a professional period you can use to meet with teachers, which is open for 25 minutes. So if you need to use that professional period it leaves you with about 25 minutes for lunch. 

Although most upperclassmen leave school for lunch, there are still many people eating lunch at school. If your class before lunch is near the cafeteria then you’re in luck, but if you have to walk from the other side of school to the cafeteria for lunch then you’re greeted with a long line taking up a good amount of time during your lunch period. If there were more lines available with the same food options, this would reduce the amount of time students spend in line, giving them more time to eat their lunch.

On B days I make that trip from one side of the school to the other for lunch. When I timed how long the line took from being all the way at the end of it to the time I sat down with my food it was 11 minutes. Depending on the day, the line can be shorter or even longer. However, for people who need to take the next block to meet with teachers it’s very inconvenient. Basically it leaves 14 minutes for lunch, not including finding a spot. 

For some that need to use both blocks to make up for a test, they won’t be able to quickly grab lunch before going to the classroom because of the long lines, leaving them without lunch, which has been the case for many students.

The main reason the lines are so long is because each line has different food there, and based on what people are looking to get for lunch, one line might get more customers. Although there are three lines total, one of those lines barely has any lunch options so it’s not really used for lunch. Most students buy pizza at lunch, and sometimes by the time the students at the end of the line get there, there’s no pizza left.

If each line had the same amount of lunch options as the other lines, that would really help reduce the time students spend waiting in line, and give them more time to eat their lunch if they need to meet with teachers.