When people go into the academic wings during lunch, they are greeted by the silence and emptiness of the hallways. At the beginning of the school year, the administration announced that students were no longer allowed to eat lunch in the academic halls.

“Students are invited to eat in the cafeteria, the fine arts building, the courtyard, or in the C/D hallways of the academic building,” principal Mark Robinson said via a school-wide announcement.

Along with the announcement, the staff had a first-day student welcome message, shown in homeroom, that asked students to eat only in the areas mentioned in the video.

“The final thing we want to make sure you know is that students can not eat in the academic wings,” assistant principal Stephanie McGraw said in the homeroom video. “Again, all of the centerpiece [in front of the library] is for you during lunch, however, hallways are for students in the academic area.”

As the new policy is enforced, teachers are thrilled to have the hallways be quieter with no students disrupting their classes while they are teaching.

“Honestly, it’s the best thing ever [because] last year I had a ham sandwich thrown at my door. It was thrown by a group of freshman and they later threw one again,” AP environmental science teacher Ashley Spiro said. “When kids were allowed to eat anywhere, there weren’t enough people to supervise. The campus would be a total mess after lunch.”

However, some of the students were relatively displeased at first as they searched for a new spot in crowded common areas such as the cafeteria and fine arts building.

“I was upset with the rule because seating wasn’t an issue but now [it] is,” sophomore Danny Burton said. “I just had to find a new spot to eat, which I did.”

When the lunch period begins, teachers stand guard in the hallways making sure that students don’t go into the academic wings. In the past, teachers have felt that groups in the wings were disruptive to their class.

“I keep an eye out for students and I make sure kids who were sitting in the hallways kindly sit in the common area,” biology teacher Brandy Ramos said. “Most students are apathetic to it.”

As teachers monitor the halls, they must also ensure that all students are wearing their ID’s.

“I feel there are better things for them to be doing than just standing there in the middle of the hallway like soldiers,” sophomore Elissa Wechsler said.

If a student does not have their ID on their lanyard, they can be asked to go to the office for a temporary ID sticker.

“It is sometimes hard to figure out which kids are from the classrooms and which ones are just wandering the halls,” Ramos said.

When the policy was not enforced, students didn’t notice how much of a mess they would leave on the tables. However, custodians and teachers did.

“I think the students didn’t notice it that much because they didn’t have to clean it up. It would be a wreck and either I or the custodians had to clean [their mess] up,” Spiro said. “In the past, I had to go out with cleaning spray and paper towels and give it to students to clean up. I would just stare them down, but since I didn’t really know their names, I couldn’t do anything.”

Despite the benefits the new policy offers to teachers, some students have mixed feelings about the loss of seating.

“I don’t know, but it seems okay for now,” Burton said. “No matter what, someone will be mad about this [lunch] policy.”