Cafeteria Room

Cafeteria Room


Students are ravenous. Seventh grade students at F.C. Hammond wait in a long line to get their food at 1:06 PM, after the 6th and 8th graders. Some kids don’t even eat breakfast! The school needs to combine the two cafeterias and add another part, where the parking lot is. This way, Hammond will have shorter lunch lines, more time to eat, and earlier lunch periods.

With a larger cafeteria, there will be more room to expand the foodservice area. Students who eat school lunch won’t have to wait in a long line. With shorter lines, students can have more time to eat and socialize with their friends, the only time they have to do so. Sometimes students can wait for more than half of their lunch period just to get food, according to Gallup High School. Fifty-one seventh graders at Hammond that took the survey wait between 10-14 minutes in the cafeteria lunch line. By the time students sit down to eat, lunch is almost over.

The average time for students to consume lunch is between 7 and 10 minutes, according to The Journal of Child Nutrition and Management. Consider also the amount of time for socializing, service, and clean-up activities. School foodservice directors can use the information from these time studies to advocate for reasonable lunch schedules that allow students at least 20 minutes to eat after they arrive at the table with their food, says The Journal of Child Nutrition and Management. Mentioned previously, the majority of the students that took the poll said that they wait between 10-14 minutes in line. The minimum of 20 minutes and 10 minutes isn’t enough time. Coming in second, 12 people said it takes them 15 minutes or more to wait in line to get their lunch, which is at least half the lunch period.

Some kids eat as early as 9:00 AM, since they may not get time to eat until 3:00 PM. Several high schools, such as Buffalo Grove, Prospect, and John Hersey, eat at 10:20 AM. Other schools may start lunch at 8 AM, when people may eat breakfast and end lunch by noon. But, lunch for 7th graders at Francis C. Hammond Middle School ends at 1:36 PM.


Making a larger cafeteria is beneficial. The students won’t be as hungry and will have more time to socialize and eat. Space will never be an issue. There will be no pushing, shoving, and cutting in line. Shouldn’t you be satisfied with more than less?