by Leigh Campbell

You have a test period six. Last night you spent your whole day balancing cross country practice and work. You have not studied. You have no frees. Your only choice is to skip lunch and go to the library to study for both activity periods.

I have encountered similar scenarios in my time at St. Teresa’s and witnessed my peers face the same dilemma almost every day.  The administration needs to provide students a room in which they can study silently both activity periods while also eating their lunch.

With increasingly busy schedules, utilizing the whole hour of activity period is sometimes necessary. Whether it is a test that needs more time to prepare for, a homework assignment that is not complete or even simply trying to get ahead, all these instances are times when STA students need to utilize their hour of lunch period. In a school that stresses time management, forcing students to choose between eating lunch and focusing on schoolwork seems cruel.

In previous years at STA, it was somewhat easy to find a teacher willing to let you eat in their classroom during lunch. But according to administration, this increased the burden on STA’s maintenance workers who have to maintain our large campus. As a result, most teachers are not allowing students to eat in their classrooms.

However, if administration designated a room in which students could eat and study by themselves, maintenance would know ahead of time that food is in that particular room. In addition, students would no longer need to deprive themselves of necessary fuel for the rest of their day in order to study.

No student should ever have to choose between their health and their schoolwork. If administration does not provide a place in which students can study and eat, this burden on students is only going to increase as the end of the semester approaches. Thus, the need for this type of room is growing everyday.

So next time you are debating whether to study or go to lunch, hopefully there will be a place where students can find balance between their health and their academics.