Students React to New COVID-19 Lunch Policy

On Sept. 13, parents and faculty received an email addressing new COVID-19 guidelines distributed by the Fulton County School District.  

Lunches have been split into A and B, meaning the cafeteria will be half-full during lunch periods. Students will spend the other half of their lunch period in study hall. 

The district stipulated that students will switch to remote learning when the number of cases in their city surpasses 1,250 per 100,000. According to the most recent Fulton County epidemiology report, released Friday, Milton’s case count is approximately 521 per 100,000.  

On Monday, these rules were initiated, but many students are looking upon them unfavorably. 

Sophomore Jack Flynn said the changes during lunch are “going to be detrimental to students’ mental health.” 

“I think the fact that they have less time to interact with the people they care about and are more likely to be split away from the people that they care about is going to cause damage,” he said.  

Sophomore Isabel Pino expressed a similar sentiment.  

“A lot of us are student athletes, and some of the only time we get to socialize are between periods or during lunch, and if they take that away from us, then we will have little to no time to socialize,” she said. 

“As teenagers, socializing is important not only to our mental health, but development and social skills as well.” 

Junior Brooklyn Goins said she thinks the administration should make some schedule changes. 

“I think that we should not have lunch or study hall, and just go home at 1:30 and take that time off to eat lunch at home,” she said. 

Sophomore Kendall Booker has another solution: Allow students to attend their classes virtually through Teams. 

“They should just add an online option so that people who are actually afraid of [COVID-19] can just go online and there will be less people in the school,” she said. 

Assistant Principal Christina Kim said she recognizes students’ disappoint in the modifications, but the district’s goal is to slow the spread of the virus.