By: Ella Harris

The bell rings, and the students race to the lunchroom with motivation displayed across their faces. Eyes darting, they scan the cafeteria for any open space. Attempting to find somewhere to sit, they find most areas taken by the flow of students around them. Sighing in defeat, they look elsewhere, stuck again without a chair in sight.

Throughout the school day, around 2,000 students pass through the cafeteria in search of chairs. Students find themselves stuck as the chairs get taken, leaving almost no room for them at their desired seat. 

“If you get to the lunchroom early there’s no problem, but if you’re slightly late it can become difficult to get chairs,” sophomore Paolo Sinopoli said.

Although, digging deeper into the situation shed light on what is really happening. It seems as if finding chairs is not the problem, but moving them to where you want to sit. 

“I’ve always eventually found a chair, but sometimes it requires moving it quite a distance to get back to your table,” Sinopoli said. “Sometimes I just steal one or two off some random person’s table.”

The administration seems to agree that the chairs themselves are not causing any problems. 

“I don’t see a need for extra chairs. Each lunch mod there are always extra empty chairs,” Deputy Principal Gayle Kimbrough said.

With this in mind, it becomes clear that solutions need to be instituted in order to remove this stress from the school day. In lower grades, the solution in place to stop the empty seats were to assign seats. 

However, of the students interviewed, they were all opposed to this idea. 

“I didn’t like how they did assigned seats in 8th grade. I’m sure it was great safety-wise and all that but I didn’t like it personally. So yes, I am opposed to assigned seats,” sophomore Haley McNichol said.

Despite this, it is clear that some changes in the lunchroom seem to have been working. 

When asked about why the long tables from last year were removed, Kimbrough had a clear answer. 

“All tables were replaced by Food Services with the matching green tables. These round ones fold in half for easier moving and storing. Our cafeteria is always being rearranged for events, so these have been a great addition for us.”

There will always be the same amount of chairs in the lunchroom. It is a matter of finding a chair and moving it to your desired location.