At Pentucket High School, voices are heard about the time allotted for lunch and what can be done to make it more enjoyable.

Pentucket has two lunches, each labeled “A” and “B.” Lunch “A” starts at 11:11 and ends at 11:35, while lunch “B” starts at 12:04 and ends at 12:28, giving students and teachers about 24 minutes to eat and socialize.

After speaking with the athletic director and assistant principal of the school, Mr. Thornton, he expressed his opinion saying, “Yes, lunch is short, but when students get to college, it’s all about time management. So, by creating a short lunch, students are able to practice finding time for socializing and eating.”

Many students do not see the Pentucket schedule as “practice for time management.” In some cases, such as Livia Cole, students think the lunch block is “too short.”

“[It] doesn’t give me enough time to settle into the cafe, eat lunch, and socialize with friends,” Cole says. She also believes that a solution to this problem could be “starting school five minutes earlier, or ending five minutes later could give us more time to be at lunch.” Although Cole’s idea is great, 75 percent of twelve students when asked said they’d rather just keep lunch the same than make the school day longer.

As some kids at Pentucket find lunch to be too short, others find it to be too long. Among them, an anonymous source states, “Lunch is long enough as is. In fact, I get bored once I finish eating then I leave the cafe and walk around until the bell rings.” This source is a walking counterexample of kids who think lunch isn’t long enough and needs to be longer. Seeing that this student feels as though lunch is too long, it’s very likely that others feel that way too, meaning the idea of making lunch longer is less likely to happen if more people are seen as against it.

A Pentucket sophomore, Sarah Bean, states, “Students need more time to eat because they also take that time to go to the bathroom, print, and fill up their waters, and since they aren’t really allowed to do any of that during class [depending on the teacher].” This, in fact, is true, as many students leave lunch to get other things done, and making lunch longer would give them more time to finish their tasks.

Although making lunch the desired time that students see fit seems easy, the school is faced with the matter that it just isn’t possible to satisfy everyone. Either way, some students will be unhappy, but if it could be lengthened by even five minutes, it could calm those who feel rushed. Those who feel it goes by too slow could get things done like homework, printing papers, or even meeting with a teacher.

There are many ways and ideas to get the lunch times changed, and it’s just a matter of being efficient and working on getting the job done.