After only three of the seven hours the average Diamond Bar High School student spends on campus, thoughts of the sweet freedom that awaits them at 3:00 may begin to take over their thoughts. At a highly ranked school like ours, it seems reasonable to allot this freedom to students a few hours earlier through an off-campus lunch.

High school students are expected to act like adults, and therefore we should be treated as such. It seems unreasonable to contain students on campus during lunch when many are mature enough to have jobs and take on significant responsibilities outside of school.

While at some other schools it is understandable how off-campus lunch may be a concern, the quality of students at DBHS is unlike any other. Our school has continuously received high rankings largely due to the hard work of students. Our GLCs do not necessarily need to have the same worries about students causing trouble off campus as those at other schools do. Allowing off-campus lunch would be a small, yet effective way of awarding students.

Opening the campus during lunch would also further students’ responsibility skills and interpersonal communication. They would need to learn to correctly manage their time to return to campus before the end of lunch. In doing so, students would be preparing for life after high school. It seems fitting to expose student to the daily responsibilities they will face as adults because they are already being prepared for their collegiate academic life in the classroom.

The most prominent benefit of off-campus lunch for students, aside from a larger variety of food, is getting to take a break from the school environment, especially on a particularly stressful day. Leaving campus allows them to re-energize before the second half of their day.

Under California law, district school boards are given the discretion to permit students to eat off campus as long as a notice laying out the school’s policy is sent to parents and guardians.

A similar program to the one in place at Los Alamitos High School could be adapted at DBHS to prevent students from taking advantage of the opportunity to leave campus. Under this program, leaving campus would only be extended to upperclassmen, who, in most cases, have a higher level of maturity. Students also have to apply for an off-campus permit, with approval from their parents.There are endless regulations that can be placed in regards to off-campus lunch to ease the apprehension of administration. Technicalities of an off-campus lunch policy aside, allowing students the freedom to leave campus during lunch would bring relief to the otherwise mundane and stressful life of a high school student.

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