In most cases, two is better than one, but at VHS, having one lunch instead of two is benefiting almost everyone. With the recent change in the school’s schedule, all of VHS students are combined in one lunch. Seniors are allowed to leave the school and the rest of the underclassman have the choice between the old gym and cafeteria to buy and eat their lunch.

“The common lunch gives the opportunity for clubs to meet and students to see teachers without any conflicts with sports,” said Vice Principal David Galbierczyk. With the old schedule, students would have to miss part of practice to stay after with teachers to get extra help, do test corrections or make up tests and quizzes. But not anymore!

Now students are not obligated to stay after school and are all in the same place at the same time to get work done together and have club meetings.

“The other day I was able to have a math study group and the teacher was there to help,” said junior Marisa Lakin.

The fifty-minute lunch also gives seniors more time to go home to eat.  Senior Joe Ballantyne said, “It feels great to have the time to go home and recharge before going back to school.” On the downside, a longer lunch means a longer day, an additional seven minutes at added to the school day, but most would argue, it’s worth it.

“I’m glad students get to have the chance to eat lunch together and get their socialization out of their system so they are much calmer when they get back to class,” Christine Specie, a history teacher at VHS, said.

While the common lunch may help the students and teachers, it is more difficult to maintain for the custodial staff.

“The custodians used to have twenty minutes between the two lunches to clean but now, they have much less time,” said Mr. Galbierczyk. The custodians have to quickly prepare the cafeteria and gym for nearly over 400 students to eat and sit around.

After lunch they have twice the amount of clean up due to twice the number of students eating at a time. They also have very little time to make the gym spotless for the gym class coming in the following period.

With the help of the hardworking custodial staff, students and teachers have a much easier time putting schoolwork first by having a designated time to do so.