One Lunch: A Catalyst for Building Community

One Lunch: A Catalyst for Building Community

Susan Stone Kessler and Robert D. Lawson

When most educators consider the traditional high school lunch period, they envision a disorganized schedule and a disorderly cafeteria. Hillsboro's former four-period lunch structure was no different. The administrative headaches were numerous: While some students ate in the cafeteria, others endured a 90-minute class period, and still others would be rotating between two segments of class and a lunch segment. Some teachers were challenged with leading an additional 30-minute class period focusing on anything from remediation to silent reading to lab-based activities.

During a typical lunch period, one administrator would supervise more than 300 teenagers in the cafeteria. Students would gobble their food quickly and then chat for 20 minutes while the administrator silently prayed that no crisis would occur. Some students inevitably needed to leave the lunchroom to run an errand, see a teacher, or go to the restroom, while other students who belonged in class managed to craft any number of credible excuses to visit another lunch. It was a near-impossible challenge to identify who was supposed to be in the cafeteria and who was scheduled to be in class.

Out of Many, One

The possibility dawned on us that we may be able to address two challenges—eliminating the chaos of the lunch period and building positive relationships among students and teachers—with one solution: overhauling Hillsboro's lunch structure. Creating a single lunch period for the entire school had the potential to resolve these problems while maximizing instructional time.

We went to stakeholders with the idea, holding discussions with students, teachers, and parents. They soon embraced the concept of the single lunch. We then garnered support from the district-level administration and the food-services department to help finance the one-time equipment costs for the serving kiosks that refrigerate and warm lunch items.

Although Hillsboro is a typical public high school in many ways, its lunch program is now far from standard. The school's daily lunch period is 52 minutes long. At 11:24 a.m., our students—all 1,100 of them, in grades 9–12—go to lunch. Students may eat in the cafeteria, at one of 30 picnic tables in the courtyard, or in a hallway. We also use this period to engage students in activities of their choice, to promote school spirit, and to encourage interactions between students and faculty—all steps that have proven to forge positive connections throughout the school.

Lunchtime Activities

We design a broad range of lunchtime activities that aim to connect all of our students to their school. Past activities have included International Day student performances, a skateboarding competition, and a prom fashion show.

In addition to these whole-school activities, Hillsboro offers more than 20 different clubs during lunch, ranging from forensics to student government to photography club. Our new club schedule has proven to be a tremendous benefit for students who lack transportation to stay after school or who are committed to outside obligations or after-school jobs. The new system has also increased participation among student athletes, who had previously been excluded because practice and game schedules conflicted with club meeting times.

In addition to clubs, we offer intramural basketball, which meets daily in the gymnasium. Students form teams that play in semester-long tournaments. Once a week we also offer "open gym," a program that invites all students to come to shoot baskets and socialize. Many of our students enjoy the intramural program—whether as participants or observers—and it is a productive physical outlet for students who enjoy this kind of activity.

Every school has students who are not interested in athletics or structured club activities but who enjoy more cerebral or solitary recreational activities. Before we implemented the one-lunch structure, we periodically offered a club time during the day—meaning that students who did not want to participate in clubs were essentially "held hostage" with nothing to do. Instead of alienating these students—either by leaving them alone or by forcing them to join the structured clubs—we now hold chess tournaments and Madden NFL 2005 video game tournaments, provide jigsaw puzzles, and offer other similar activities.

All of these activities have connected students to peers who are not in their social groups and forged friendships among students with similar interests.

School Spirit

In an effort to increase school spirit, we have organized theme weeks around our lunch schedule. During homecoming week each fall, we offer a wide variety of activities, including pie-eating contests and faculty-student flag football. Such activities help unify students and demonstrate to them that high school doesn't have to be isolating and impersonal.

During winter in Nashville, it is not unusual for temperatures to drop to the teens, keeping many students inside during lunch. Accordingly, we developed an exciting winter alternative to outdoor activities: "Hillsboro Idol," a karaoke contest that allows students to perform their favorite songs while their friends clap and sing along. The first karaoke contest of the year is faculty-only. This faculty participation generates interest and helps showcase teacher talent (and courage). The karaoke performances usually display a wide range of talent. The students in the audience applaud and cheer for their peers as though they were at a rock concert, whether the singers are seasoned performers or just doing it for fun. There have been no incidents of booing or harassment; students seem to understand the risk their peers are taking and value their effort. This kind of activity is valuable in the way it helps bridge gaps between students across grade levels and in different social groups.

Adult-Student Interactions

One of the most significant benefits of the one-lunch system is that it gives staff members numerous opportunities to interact with students. Each teacher spends a few days each month supervising the hallways during lunch for about 15 minutes. While not supervising, teachers enjoy a duty-free lunch. Many teachers, however, choose to offer individual assistance to students or allow them to make up missed work. This flexibility is beneficial for teachers and students and reduces the need for both groups to complete these tasks before or after school. Andrew Davis, Hillsboro's English department chair, noted

"I have found that the time I am able to sit in the hallway and eat my lunch has made me more accessible to students whom I don't even have in a class, or whom I have had in prior classes. They stop and ask what I'm doing or how I pick my bowtie for the day. Building those relationships outside the typical classroom has helped me in my interaction with those same students during other times, such as pep rallies or class changes."

Lunch offers some down time during which students can visit teachers, consult with counselors, or have discussions with administrators that are not centered on discipline issues. Students get the chance to share things that matter to them with adults on their terms. These conversations increase the connections students feel to teachers, to school, and to learning in general. As one student pointed out,

"The teachers have time to ask about after-school jobs, talk about the college application process, or follow up about a personal problem they know I was having. Students can find teachers because they know that they are accessible at lunch and the time pressure of class is not an issue. At lunch, it is like we are all real people."

Beyond Lunch

In the effort to maintain high standards and increase student achievement, the climate of most U.S. public schools has become as intensely pressured as that of an operating room or a busy sales floor. Our lunch period provides both students and educators with a necessary hiatus from that pressure. Of course, it's impossible to ignore standardized tests and accountability. But our new lunch period, although longer than previous lunches were, actually maximizes instructional time. The streamlined schedule reduces the need to shuffle students around like puzzle pieces being made to fit the schedule. In addition, the break from academic pressure refreshes both students and teachers, preparing them to do good work in the following periods.

There were skeptics who thought this lunch system would never work. They were concerned about student fights or lack of supervision. But their predictions were not realized: There have been considerably fewer disciplinary incidents during the single lunch than there were under the former four-lunch structure. The one-lunch structure has actually improved student behavior and made students recognize that with more freedom comes more responsibility. We were convinced that lunch began to make a difference when students who were assigned to in-school suspension began to complain about missing their favorite lunchtime activity; many teachers have started using lunch detention as an effective classroom management strategy.

At the end of the first year of implementation, we surveyed the faculty and student body about the single lunch. Zero teachers and only 4 out of 1,100 students wanted to go back to the traditional lunch schedule. Of all the innovations we have seen in our careers, we cannot think of one that has been embraced with the level of consensus that the one-lunch initiative has been at Hillsboro.

Ultimately, it is student learning that schools are designed to foster, and by far it is the most compelling contribution that our profession makes to society. As unlikely as it seems, the single-lunch program has become one of the most important factors contributing to the academic success of our students and the overall positive atmosphere within our school. At Hillsboro High School, the single lunch ensures that no child is left behind.

Susan Stone Kessler (susan.kessler@mnps.org) is an associate faculty member at the University of Phoenix and assistant principal of Hillsboro Comprehensive High School, 3812 Hillsboro Rd., Nashville, TN 37215. Robert D. Lawson (robert.lawson@mnps.org) was executive principal of Hillsboro Comprehensive High School from 2003-2007.