Swarms of people. Echoes of countless conversations. Tables cluttered with mountains of trash. Students from each grade at every corner. Although the LS cafeteria remains busy throughout the school day, many people complain about the conditions of the cafeteria, to the point where they won’t step foot into the bustling space. How can LSRHS make the cafeteria a better environment and persuade more people to eat there? After all, the school cafeteria is extremely important as a place where everyone should come together, socialize, and relax during their lunchtime.
As a positive, the cafeteria provides a place to socialize with many different people during lunchtime. Anna Trevisan expressed that she enjoys spending time in the cafeteria, because she interacts with people whom she would not normally talk to. However, people tend to sit with their group of friends in the cafeteria, often separating the cafeteria by grade. When asked if they liked this cafeteria setup, Lilly Arkin agreed: “It’s easier for people to find their friends,” and later on voiced that grouping students by grade increases the chance that you will find somewhere to sit, specifically with people you know. Rachel Goldman explained, “Sometimes people feel more awkward around grades that are not their own, and that [changing the setup] would make socializing more difficult.”
Additionally, during lunchtime, it’s a rushed battle to find a table in the cafeteria. If you don’t hustle after class, you would be lucky to find any available tables, and those unoccupied are sometimes covered in food wrappers and crumbs. No desirable tables available? There’s a good chance that you will not find another place to eat lunch in the building, as many of the tables upstairs are claimed. Eliminating the designated areas in the cafeteria could provide benefits, such as more students being able to eat in the cafeteria, for there would be more tables for them to select. As of now, though, it seems impossible to get rid of the unspoken rule; many people want to keep the grades separate, even if it means not eating lunch at a table.
The students we talked to all agreed on one key topic: the cafeteria environment. Anna and Lilly vocalized “Sometimes I don’t want to be in a crowded space,” and “It can be messy at times and it’s really loud.” Students have reported seeing others leave their trash in piles on the table before heading to their next class. Bridget Knightly said that she doesn’t sit in the cafeteria because of how “gross it is.” Due to this common perception of the cafeteria, despite continued efforts to keep it clean, more L-S students want to keep the cafeteria clean. Ideas like spreading encouragement for students to pick up after themselves, emphasizing the trash issue, or creating possible punishments for repeated offenders have come up. In addition, to ensure clean tables, people have recommended that the tables should be cleaned in between lunches. Although it can be hard to see real change in the student’s behavior, it is important that we treat the L-S community with respect, and we can do that by keeping the cafeterias clean. It is disrespectful to leave the remainder of your food for someone else to clean up. Would you leave your leftovers for your mother to clean up? I should hope your answer is no.
