Open-campus lunch, this is something that pretty much all Gilroy High School students want but none of us can have. I think GHS students, or at least some of them deserve the privilege of going off campus for lunch, but just about everyone says it can’t be done. Some high schools have unrestricted open campus lunches, others have systems that make students earn their off campus lunch privileges and others, like good ole GHS just do not have open campus lunch at all.
Now before I go into the pros and cons of open campus lunch and why GHS should have it, let me give you a little history about GHS and the current closed-campus policy. Years ago Gilroy High had an open-campus lunch policy. Students were allowed to leave school as soon as the lunch bell rang and go invade their favorite fast food restaurant such as Taco Bell. But one day during lunch an intruder came onto the GHS campus and stabbed and killed a student.
Since that incident the campus has been completely closed and the wrought iron gates that guard each exit are locked throughout the school day. It is my understanding, however, that the stabbing was not the only reason that the campus was closed, it was more like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
After that terrible incident, it is understandable why the campus was closed. With all the liability issues it makes sense for the school to close the campus. Theoretically, if a student is off campus during lunch the school could be liable for any crimes or accidents.
Apart from the possibility of intruders, there is also the issue of students returning to school. With students free to leave at lunch, it would be incredibly easy to just ditch for the rest of the day and not return for fifth or sixth period. So, truancy rates would most likely skyrocket.
While there are substantial drawbacks to having an open campus I think that if the situation is handled carefully GHS could make open campus lunch work. This would not work if someone in administration simply declared an open campus and had a bulldozer take down the prison gates that surround the school; this would only result in complete mayhem.
One solution is to give open campus lunch to only some students on campus; this would prevent a mass exodus of 2,400 students at 12:15pm.
Perhaps only the honors students at GHS should have off-campus privileges. This could give students some added incentive to do well. Or maybe only the upper classmen at school get to have open campus lunch; this make sense because lower classmen usually can’t drive and the closest food joints aren’t exactly within walking distance for our short lunch period.
Another possible method could be that students only are allowed to leave campus every other day. On Monday half the students are allowed to leave and on Tuesday the other half are allowed to leave. This could work if students had certain cards or stickers on their official ID cards that stipulate when the student is allowed off campus. These cards could easily be checked be the campus supervisors that guard the gates every lunch period.
Even if one or all of these methods are adopted there is still the liability issue – but wait I have a possible solution for this, too. At the beginning of the school year, if a student wants to be allowed off campus at lunch they must have a liability waiver signed by their parents. Now I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know how these waivers or contracts would work, but it’s a start.
Now I realize that the suggestions I have made here are not exactly easily executed, and students and staff would have to jump through hoops to make a new off-campus lunch policy work, but if it worked out it would definitely be worth it and the students of GHS would be eternally grateful.
