Administration and the RHS Leadership Team continued to discuss solutions to the ongoing lunch time dilemma at the weekly leadership meeting Oct. 7 and will not add to classroom instruction for the time-being.

Instead of immediately shortening the lunch period as was suggested before, multiple trial solutions have been proposed and may be implemented in the very near future. One such proposal will divide the lunch period into two parts: one for eating and socializing, and one for academic purposes.

The proposal allots students a 30-minute lunch period during which they may buy their lunches, eat their food, visit teachers and socialize with friends. After 30 minutes, a bell will ring and students will have to clear the hallways and report either to a teacher for help, to the cafeteria, or to the media center, eliminating security problems and enforcing academic consultation time.

This new lunch schedule will most likely be put into place for a week and will be announced by the administration ahead of time. Other suggested solutions to the problem of roaming students at lunch included cutting lunch by six or seven minutes and adding those extra couple minutes to classes. Some involved restricting students to the cafeteria, which has a capacity of a little more than one third of the size of the student body.

Assistant Principal Dyan Gomez said, “We [are] looking for a way to get students to use the time wisely so that they’re not just wandering the halls. The purpose of this long lunch is for kids to go to class and get help and… I think we need to look at other things before we hurt the kids that are doing what we want them to do during this time, because they’re the ones that are going to be punished if we shorten lunch.”