With each passing school day, the problem of the lunch line grows. Changes need to be made to make Stewart Hall a better and safer place.

The lunch line is a dark place on Malvern’s campus. If you don’t get in early or aren’t a senior, then you will feel the sheer force of a mob of students jostle you around. Students are pushed, hit, and even hoisted from the ground (not kidding).

It sounds comical, but the lunch line is a serious problem. We are calling it a line, but a more accurate description would be mosh pit.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]A rowdy lunch line does not sound like that much of a problem. However, it can make significant impressions on a lot of people. [/perfectpullquote]

Are Malvern students always perfectly behaved when on campus? No, but there is a sense of respect and awareness of the rules in almost every building. The one exception to this, however, is in Stewart Hall during the two Upper School lunch shifts. If you were to Google the word “pandemonium,” a picture of the line during an Upper School lunch would appear.

Being a freshman at your first lunch at any high school can be intimidating. You might not be sure where to go, who to sit with, or what to talk about. At Malvern, there is an extra intimidation factor to this young freshman, and that is the lunch line. Not only do they take a while to get through, but a young freshman would immediately get engulfed by the pit if he got too close.  

We are all teenage boys, and we like to eat. However, this does not mean that we have to act like wild animals before we receive our food. The food is already made and is not going anywhere. There really is no need to push and shove.

The cafeteria staff works hard every day so that we can have break and lunch, and in return, they see Malvern students at what is probably our absolute worst.

“I think [the line] is very rowdy. When the kids come in for lunch, they’re just very hyper. They’re looking to eat, they just want to get in, get their food, sit down, and chill out,” Assistant to the Director of Dining Services Mrs. Linda Bogan said. “They crowd the line, and they push each other. Some days it’s not too bad, but on more occasions they’re a little rowdy.”

This has been a problem for a number of years, but it seems that things are continuing to get worse. We feel that changes need to be made not only for student’s safety but also to strengthen Malvern’s reputation.

We all agree that throwing three grades into a pile is not an efficient way of going about the line. This type of cluster promotes aggressiveness and provides an unfair advantage to the larger students and to the students who try to cut the line by sneaking in through the side (yes, we see you).

Recently, students have been forced to go back to their tables and are called up table by table to get their food. While this does help in settling down the chaos, students end up getting their food with only 15 or so minutes left in lunch.

Our solution is similar to this but with a slight twist that would hopefully speed up the process. If each grade was called up one by one, it would cut off most of the havoc that occurs in the lunch line. Seniors would go first, get their food, sit down, and then the juniors would be called up, and so on.

While freshmen may not like this process since they would be getting their food last, the whole process would be a lot simpler. They would also be able to figure out where they were sitting prior to getting in the lunch line and would still have plenty of time to eat and talk with their friends.

We also feel that if Malvern was a co-ed school there would be a lot less pushing and shoving in the lunch line. If students saw a girl in the middle of the mob of people at lunch, they would most likely, and hopefully, stop pushing. Unfortunately, we don’t think Malvern is going to merge with Villa just to settle our problem in the cafeteria.

A solution that we came up for this is to have an authoritative female faculty member help with controlling the lunch line. Sometimes students see all guys, even if one is a faculty member, and think that it is okay and funny to push each other around. Hopefully, a female teacher would be able to control the line and influence the student body to act more respectful when preparing to get their lunch.

A rowdy lunch line does not sound like that much of a problem. However, it can make significant impressions on a lot of people. While you may think it is funny, outsiders to Malvern may not.

That is why the lunch line must be fixed–for the students, for the teachers moderating, for the cafeteria staff, and for campus safety and sanity.