OPINION

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By Coley Alvis

Collegiate School has clear rules on when students are permitted to leave campus during the school day. Collegiate only authorizes you to leave or arrive late if you have a study hall first or last period, or with permission from a parent or guardian. A new rule I believe Collegiate should implement is letting students leave during their lunch period to either go home or go to a nearby fast-food restaurant for lunch. 

Although there have been rumors in the past of this rule, Upper School Dean of Students Mark Palyo was quick to shut them down when asked, saying, “no such option has ever existed during my 27-year association with the school.” As that came as a surprise to me, he followed up the question by saying, “While it was never a rule, I’m not sure if students in the past have ever done this without permission.” After hearing him say this, my immediate thought was: Well, if this was a rule, wouldn’t it help keep students out of trouble? 

Faculty encourage and instruct students to do the right thing, and could they be trusted with this responsibility? This would also give students more freedom during the school day. Allowing students to leave would help them have time to relax, listen to music, and enjoy a meal that is not made in the same cafeteria every day. Students could use a wider variety of meals at lunch, beyond what is offered in McFall Hall. 

McFall Hall. Photo courtesy of Collegiate School.

One main problem that Palyo brought up was that students would not have enough time to get lunch, come back, and still have time to eat before the next class started. I decided to test that theory by timing myself driving from Collegiate to local fast-food restaurants that most students would typically go to. The first area I traveled to is the Tuckahoe Village shopping center. This shopping center includes multiple fast food options, including Arby’s, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway, Domino’s Pizza, and more. It took me nine minutes to get there, with a total roundtrip of twenty-three minutes. This trip would take a maximum of thirty minutes if you spend twenty minutes driving and a maximum of ten minutes ordering food. This allows the student to have a time of twenty minutes for each, which might be rushed for some but still enough time if you use your time right. This would be even easier for students that have the lunch period free, since they would have between 12:20 p.m. and 1:55 p.m. free. This would also alleviate crowding during Community Lunch on Gold Thursdays, since the entire Upper School is often in McFall at the same time on those days. 

Another area students would commonly travel to the area around Regency Mall, which has food places such as Chipotle, Cook Out, Chick-fil-A, Quiznos, Panera, Starbucks, and even more. This area, very similar to the Village Shopping Center, averages eleven minutes from Collegiate, with a round trip of roughly 32 minutes. That gives you almost twenty minutes to eat, with plenty of time for students to safely leave school, with enough time to be back in time for class. As it may be a concern that students will be leaving every day for lunch, I believe there should be additional rules implemented. 

Some additional rules could be making this a seniors-only privilege, allowing students to only leave once or twice a week, and adding a driving form that parents would sign, permitting them to leave. Students who have sports at Robins Campus are allowed to drive every day with permission, so why wouldn’t the school allow students to have the same freedom during the school day? Because this would be a privilege given by the school, the Honor Code would also definitely be applicable. This means students are signing out to go to one area and one area only. Students caught taking advantage of this policy would have their privileges taken away or suspended until further notice. As this rule has “been brought up before,” according to Palyo, I propose that this be taken into consideration. If Collegiate values their Honor Code so highly, why can’t students be trusted to make the right decision to leave school for lunch?

Featured image credit: Walker Kinsler via Wikimedia Commons.