When I walked into lunch on Monday, September 25th, I was met with the biggest shock of my time at KHS. I went to grab a cheeseburger, the last thing I needed to check out, but I was instead met by a tap on the shoulder of a man corrupt with power. I was told to go to the back of the line, where the rest of the helpless students were being herded like cows into the yellow gates. This was a foreign experience to me, as I was used to being out of the line within fifteen seconds with my uncrustable, milk, and apple. A privilege that had been awarded to every previous class when they were seniors, had been ripped out of my hands. I have paid my dues. I have waited in line long enough.

This inconvenience is deeply troubling to how our seniors are being treated. It feels like the lunch line is being monitored by a couple of prison guards. As soon as one person steps a foot out of the single-file line (an elementary concept) they are escorted to the back of the line to be met with even more feelings of misery. Even when someone waits out the whole lunch line when there are no more people waiting, they are interrogated on whether or not they have already received lunch. The new system for getting lunch is completely inefficient as well, at least way less efficient than how it was previously run. Instead of jumping the line to get whatever lunch option you want, you now have to wait behind the entire line of people moving like they are stuck in quicksand just to get what you want. I actually decided to wait through the entire line just to test my theory, and it took me 10 minutes and 32 seconds to get my lunch. Just for reference, that is just over one third of lunch time. Waiting that long is absolutely ridiculous, especially when taking into consideration that you also have to find a seat and get situated as well. This is compared to the old way of jumping to what you need and being out within a minute or so. However, it seems like this issue isn’t meant to be purely about the lunch line, but rather a more deeply troubling issue brewing in the workings of our school administration.

The lunch line is just another system being restricted by our school administration. Why else would they be cracking down on something so efficient as the lunch line? This issue essentially is a power struggle between students and administration. First, they wanted to control student property, then student parking, and now they want to control how quickly students are able to eat their mid-day meal. This tyranny cannot continue to go unchecked by our student body. Every student in this school has at least some disgruntled feeling about one of the previously mentioned restrictions placed on students. Why does the school need to control how quickly I eat and what I do with my personal belongings, as well as know my vehicle and registration information? In addition, to the re-establishment of harsh detention policies for being late, which route back to traffic issues prolonged by the school. These acts are attacks against students’ personal rights and can no longer go unseen by our student body. 

As much as this may seem like an insignificant issue to the non-student readers, it really is something that the student body cares about. Obviously, there isn’t really a significant way that students are able to voice their opinions individually without getting some form of punishment, but I often hear rumblings from other students about how these new rules are unfair, but nobody seems to voice their opinions about their discontent. Our administration needs to hear how we really feel about all these new rules and that we truly don’t want to see anymore of these changes that have completely changed the culture of Kennebunk High School. Not only do we need more clarity as students, but we need more student/administration communication to end these conflicts.