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On Tuesday, September 9th, at 5 pm, Lincoln High School parents received an email informing them that a district-wide two-lunch schedule would be replacing the current one-lunch schedule in less than a week, on Monday, September 15th.

The District’s Reasoning

State law declares that every student must get 20 minutes of lunchtime to sit and eat their food. In high schools where the majority of students qualify for and use the Free and Reduced Lunch program, lines are often so long that students have no time to eat by the time they get their food. The district claims that two lunches would allow for shorter lines and give students that 20 minutes of eating time.

Impact at Lincoln

For those unfamiliar, Lincoln students (as well as most SPS high schoolers) get a 30-minute lunch every day. Due to Lincoln’s building constraints, there is no cafeteria, so many students eat in hallways, classrooms, and other miscellaneous areas around the school. Lunches are also when 63 out of Lincoln’s 68 clubs meet. This includes affinity groups as well as committees of our student government (Associated Student Body—ASB).

According to the Lincoln administration, a two-lunch schedule has been on the table for years now. And for schools where the lunch lines are long enough that students don’t have time to eat, this schedule change could be a viable solution. However, at Lincoln, this does not apply. Admin has confirmed that Lincoln does meet the 20-minute requirement, and lunch lines at our school are not long enough to cause issues. Therefore, the schedule change will only create problems, instead of being a solution. A two-lunch schedule means the death of most clubs, as members would be split between lunches. It would mean friend groups split apart and ASB activities stalled, with committees unable to meet. In past years, security has already struggled to mitigate students leaving class to walk the halls with friends. With this schedule, it will be even more difficult for the administration to discern whether students are at lunch or skipping class to see their friends, leading to distractions for students trying to learn. 

Sudden Decision

Furthermore, the sudden decision to implement this schedule was chaotic and poorly planned. Our school’s admin has been scrambling to create a feasible schedule on short notice that accommodates state/district regulations, teacher contracts, Running Start students (who take some of their classes at community college), and more. This decision appears to be unexpected, even at levels higher than individual schools. SPS has a student board that works with the school board, created with the belief that students should “have a voice in the education received from the district and the decisions made by the board,” according to SPS’s website. Our ASB reached out to one of the student board members and was told they had no idea about this schedule change, nor were they given any opportunity to provide input. When asked on Wednesday, September 10th, cafeteria workers at our school—whose work shifts would be doubled by the schedule change—were not even aware that the schedule was changing. Overall, the district appears to be unaware of, or is simply disregarding, the large impact this schedule change is having on both students and administration. The result? Students are upset and planning to do something about it. 

The Protest

Before the official email went out to parents, Ingraham High School’s ASB had already reached out to Lincoln’s ASB, informing them of a walkout they were planning and asking Lincoln to join. At 11 am on Monday, September 15th, students from Lincoln, Hale, Roosevelt, Ingraham, West Seattle, Ballard, and other high schools across Seattle will be leaving school to protest this schedule change at the district offices in SODO. The Instagram account @onelunchsps was made to provide information and guidance around what is happening and what students can do about it. In just two days, it had already amassed over 1,500 followers. As of Wednesday night, a petition against the schedule change had over 4,000 signatures. 

The email explaining this change cited reasons of “Protecting staff lunch breaks… supporting our food service teams’ contractual rights… [and] equitable access to meals for students attending off-site programs like the Skills Center.” However, this doesn’t appear to align with the decisions actually being made. The food service teams appear unaware of what is happening. Admin has specifically stated that the biggest challenges in creating the new schedule have been accommodating Skills Center and Running Start students, as well as making a schedule that still allows staff to have department meetings. The culture at Lincoln will be irreparably altered by this schedule change. For these reasons and more, the backlash and protest the district is facing feels well deserved. As a student myself, I’m proud of the way that Seattle’s high schools have organized and begun to rally, and I’m hopeful that the district will be willing to listen to our concerns.