A new schedule has been implemented with two lunches and an additional study hall. 

The administration wanted there to be separate lunches, but they also wanted students to have time to work on things they needed to. 

“We made sure when we went to the split lunch, that we gave you a study hall to still provide you that time to go to classes to get help and to do your homework,” activities director Jeff Staley said.

Three years ago, PHS had three lunches in one day and implemented this lunch for at least a decade. Over the past two years, there have been four different lunch schedules.

In the fall of 2017, lunch was changed to Power Hour. Power Hour allowed all students to eat lunch at the same time. This gave students opportunities to be with anyone during that lunch.

“We had heard about something called a lunch hour. We called it a Power Hour,” Staley said. “That gave the students, the entire student body, almost an hour to eat.”

However, after two weeks of complications, Power Hour was suspended.

“We didn’t have the space for Power Hour, it was too crowded and the supervision was difficult,” Staley said.

For the following year, depending on what side of the building a student had class determined what time they ate lunch. If it wasn’t lunch, students had a 25-minute study hall. 

Some students see this year’s lunch change as a positive one.

“Last year, in order to do our sectionals for choir, we would have had to take our study hall to do that, but now we have a free study hall,” sophomore Sophie Casper said. 

Other students have differing opinions. 

“I don’t really like how it’s so cramped now,” senior Avery Bowman said. “Lunch and study hall have so many students that there are too many kids in one individual class. Now students don’t have the freedom they did and they have assigned classes.” 

In addition to students, some teachers also see this year’s lunch as a positive change. 

This lunch has impacted the faculty as well. A focus is keeping students in a designated area and preventing them from wandering. 

“We feel like [this lunch] has a positive impact and we’re going to try to stick with it,” Staley said. “We don’t want there to be a disruption to the learning so we try to keep kids in a certain area.”

In the end, admin agrees that this lunch is the best for everyone.

“You’re never going to have a system that makes everybody happy,” Staley said. “We’re always looking for ways to improve.”