by Devin Cornelius ‘12

By enacting an open lunch policy, Sherwood would grant students a much-needed 40 minutes of freedom.

It’s 10:53 and the bell finally rings, getting you out of a vapid history lecture. Ahh, lunchtime: your only free period to socialize, study, eat or even catch a quick nap. But strangely, you’re not as excited as you should be. You stumble your way through the crowded halls to your usual unwelcoming lunch spot on the floor, surrounded by noisy, littering people. Pulling out your mundane lunch, which always goes bad by lunch time, you see the usual flimsy sandwich, stale chips and water. As you try to make the best of a bad situation, you and your friends get harassed by the security guards to clean up your trash, when all period, students have been carelessly discarding wrappers and bottles in your area.

You’ve had it. Enough is enough.

You want the freedom to escape the chaos of school for that 43 minutes a day, purchase some fresh food to your liking, eat in a clean environment and sit in actual chairs for once. And no more cold sandwich and stale chips! You could get a hot sub, a fresh salad, an icy shake or a succulent burrito. Think about all the culinary options the Olney-Sandy Spring area offers these days. Options include Urban Barbeque, Chipotle, Five Guys and the soon-to-open Panera Bread. And then there are the good old stand-bys like California Tortilla, McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Moby Dick’s and Popeye’s. With such an abundance of fine dining at your finger tips, it’s almost unbearable to be confined on campus all day.

After surveying the situation, it only makes sense to enact an open lunch policy at Sherwood. Most businesses don’t have their lunch breaks until 12 pm, leaving students to beat the rush and any substantial traffic. This allows students to easily travel to Olney and make it back in time for fifth period. As long as you eat with a purpose and don’t linger, there are no problems. It takes only five to 10 minutes to get to Olney depending on the lights, 20 minutes to eat and five to 10 to return back. Or if you want to go to Urban BBQ or French Confection, you must only travel a mere minute away from school to enjoy the whole lunch period in a restaurant.

With fewer students eating at school, the amount of trash discarded in the hallways would significantly decrease, leaving janitors and the administration with much less work and stress. With safer, cleaner hallways, who wouldn’t want to participate and support an open lunch?

Richard Montgomery, Quince Orchard, Walter Johnson, Northwest, Whitman, Gaithersburg, Seneca Valley, Poolesville, Paint Branch, Damascus, Churchill and BCC all enjoy the freedom of open lunches with a 43-minute lunch period like ours. Sherwood can be next. Initiation of an open lunch policy is not beyond students’ control. In fact, students actually can petition the policy to the administration. Every year our SGA has the opportunity to ask the principal for consideration to instate the policy. So why not? By starting to talk to your representatives now, you could kick off the 2011-2012 school year with a brand new lunch regimen! With their support and a strong petition, an open lunch is not out of reach. Signing your signatures on a single piece of paper could expand your freedom drastically and allow you to finally start enjoying your lunch. No longer will your day be ruled by a brown paper bag or flimsy sandwich.