Going to school during a pandemic has been especially hard on students. One of the hardest challenges that the students have faced is the lunch table seating. While some students enjoy their assigned seats, most students would prefer to sit in seats of their choice but as stated before, we are still in a pandemic so it’s harder to do what we want while still being safe. The school already has precautions, but some students think that they could do some things better.
“I think that the school could work on getting contact tracing because they don’t want people to be sent home, but if we choose where we sit, we’re probably going to sit next to our friends, and we will probably hang out with our friends after school anyways, so I don’t really think that it’s better for us to sit with our sixth period,” said seventh grade student Madalyn Martin.
Currently, the sixth graders sit with their fourth period and the seventh and eighth graders sit with their sixth period. They got to choose where they sat on the first day and now that is their seating arrangement for the rest of the year. There are 8 people at a table, 4 on one side each, 2 on each bench. They are separated by their backpacks and have no masks for almost the whole time. This system has worked fine so far, but some students would prefer a different arrangement.
“At lunch I think that we should be able to pick 2 or 3 friends that we want to sit with and then the deans should write them down and that would be where we sit for the rest of the year,” explained Mia Wicks, a seventh grader and Landrum.
A few other students said something like this system and some students even said that they don’t think that what we are doing right now for lunch isn’t even that effective.
“I don’t think that it’s effective because no one wears masks, and we aren’t social distancing so the only thing that it does is make sure that if I get COVID, the people at my table would get quarantined, that is pretty much all its doing,” claimed Lauren Barned.
Most students keep their masks off the whole time that they are eating lunch but when they get up, they are required to always keep their masks on. Even though they are slightly socially distanced, having no masks puts the students at more risk.
The lunch arrangement isn’t too defective, but most students that go to Landrum would prefer to have different plan. Though a lot of people doubt the system will change unless COVID dies down, some kids have hope that it will change by the end of the year.
“I think that the lunch seating will change but not soon because the COVID vaccine has to get to the older crowd of people before it gets to us.” Jack Berquist quoted.
The issue of a pandemic has put us through many challenges, but school has been hardest. Masks all day, desk shields, social distancing, but a lot of problems are coming from being quarantined.
The current lunch seating at Landrum allows contact tracing, but overall, the student’s opinions of this whole thing, aren’t very good.
“I think that when it comes to it, the student’s feelings are just as important as their safety,” stated Nick Nuualiitia