Oak Park High School may tighten its policy on leaving campus at lunchtime

By Sylvie Belmond belmond@theacorn.com

Only senior students at Oak Park High will be allowed to leave campus during the lunch break if the Oak Park Unified School District board approves the recommendation of Principal Lynn McCormack.

Effective next September, soph- omores and juniors who drive would have to stay on campus.

McCormack decided to make this recommendation because she was concerned that the current lunch-pass policy creates a dangerous situation and someone could get injured.

"It’s a safety issue. We can’t sit back and put our kids at risk," she said, adding that seniors will still need written permission from their parents to leave the campus for lunch.

To control a situation that’s getting out of hand, McCormack said, she’s presented the concept to the Parent Faculty Club, the school site council and the students for feedback.

Scott Greenwald, Associated Student Body president at Oak Park High School, said the idea is controversial on campus but added there are benefits to the proposal.

"It’s chaotic to leave for lunch right now, and it can take up to 15 minutes to get off campus," he said. If it weren’t for the crowd, students could leave and get back in a timely fashion, Greenwald said.

"There’s a group of people who feel that when they’re seniors they’ll appreciate it, but others are resentful," he said.

Some sophomores don’t like the new restrictions, Greenwald said, because they were looking forward to going off campus during their junior year and now have to wait an extra year.

That’s how sophomore David Saunders feels. "It’s a bad idea," he said, not only because they’re taking away a privilege that sophomores are about to have, but also because the school will be overcrowded at lunchtime. "It will be hard to get to the food," Saunders said.

At a student committee meeting on Nov. 10, students made suggestions to the principal. They indicated that many people walk off campus, and they shouldn’t have their passes taken away. Some said the food at school is expensive and "gross," while others suggested the lunch period should be extended.

McCormack had already given those issues a lot of thought and said that the school would make the necessary changes.

"We’ll have to increase the quantity and variety of food offerings to accommodate junior students remaining on campus at lunch, and we’ll also purchase additional picnic tables and work with our students to expand lunchtime activities," she said.

Other concerns the principal considered before she drafted the recommendation included the amount of time that school employees must spend checking passes and ensuring that students don’t take passengers if they are on permit.

But students came up with ideas to minimize these tasks.

"You could speed up the existing process by putting stickers and other types of signage on cars to say they have off-campus passes and a six-month driver’s permit," said a student at the meeting. People will be less frustrated, he added.

Although she understands that it’s frustrating for juniors to give up the privilege of driving off campus for lunch, McCormack reiterated that it’s a safety issue. If the board adopts the recommendation, she said, the school and the district will make every effort to accommodate the extra students who stay on campus.