By Morgan Hill ’16

Despite the absence of an open lunch policy at Sherwood, students are still capable of finding ways to sneak out during the lunch period. Security has tried to stop students from leaving during lunch by monitoring the parking lot for a majority of the period, but students still attempt to sneak out daily.

While most students are not permitted to leave school grounds during lunch, there is the exception of students with internships, jobs, or half-day schedules. “We stop everyone that tries to leave,” said head of security Patrick Rooney. “Then from there, we check the students’ schedules.”

Security is provided with a list of students who have off-campus internships and those who are caught leaving for reasons besides an internship will face consequences. The first time a student is caught, security will issue a lunch detention. Any student repeatedly caught leaving school during the lunch period is at risk of losing the privilege of driving to school.

The adoption of open lunch can be brought to a school through a petition from the SGA. The SGA must provide the principal with evidence of the school’s proximity to food establishments, proof that there is sufficient time in the lunch period for travel to these food establishments, and indication of safe traffic movement and reasonable access to and from the food establishments. The principal then evaluates the evidence brought forward by the SGA and makes the final decision. All MCPS high school students are required to remain on campus at lunchtime unless the principal approves the petition.

Although an open lunch arrangement has not been established at Sherwood, many students believe that the opportunity to leave school during lunch presents itself well. “Whenever I leave school for lunch I always have time to eat and then get back to school before sixth period starts,” said a 12th grade student.

Security believes that an open lunch petition would fail because the lunch period does not allow enough time for students to go to and from school. With 36 minutes allotted for lunch and limited establishments within a quarter of a mile, Security has voiced concerns about students rushing back to school after being off campus for a lunch period. “People don’t organize time efficiently, and I can foresee accidents happening because of it,” Rooney said. “It’s a tragedy waiting to happen.”

In his 12 years at Sherwood, Principal William Gregory has not been presented with an official petition for open lunch, but believes that an open lunch would not be in the best interest of the school nor the community. “The biggest reason that it wouldn’t work is that there is just nowhere to go,” Gregory said. “People would have to go down to Olney, which involves getting in cars, and getting in cars is dangerous.”