The first bell rings and I can feel my heart rate rise.  I know that if I don’t get to my table soon I won’t get a seat.  I will get stuck knee-to-knee or even in the dreaded second row.  This is the stress many of my fellow students and I need to deal with every day.

Lunch at school is supposed to be a student’s time to relax and talk to their friends. This may be true for some people but, at the same time, some students need to fight for this right.   The lunchroom needs bigger tables and a better form of organization so lunch can again be a time of relaxation.

Every day at lunch I need to sprint to the lunchroom, hoping that the lunch table that I sit at isn’t already full. During lunch I look at all the tables like mine, overflowing with people and enviously stare at the rare, half-full tables.

I get to the lunchroom early every day and within minutes all the empty tables swell to nine, ten, even eleven people or more, sitting at tables meant for eight.

Sitting knee-to-knee with each other and fighting for space that isn’t there is not how lunch should be.  Looking around, it’s not just my lunch table but close to half of the tables have the same problem. They even have people sitting off the table in a second row, not even at the lunch table but behind those at the table. These people are the last to the lunch table and are forced to eat off their laps.

Space isn’t the only problem. Once your table hits ten kids there is a constant problem of noise. Everyone is trying to be heard over their table mates and the byproduct is a chaotic amount of noise.  With every table shouting the noise is too high to even think.

In the beginning of the year all the tables were fluid and I could leave an overcrowded table and go to an empty one.  But at this point each table is set in stone.  The same people sit at the same tables every day which makes leaving your table much harder.

If the lunchroom’s tables were bigger, then those who sit with just a few people could still sit with those people and the bigger tables would offer them even more space.  At the same time those who sit at overcrowded tables would have the space they deserve.

The lunchroom needs to get better organization. We need bigger tables and more space.  With bigger tables, everyone would be able to sit with the same kids and have more room for everyone.  People sitting behind a table would be a thing of the past and the noise would go down because everyone would be closer to those they want to talk to.  This school’s students deserve bigger tables at lunch.