Jude Magnotti ‘26
EE Editor-In-Chief
What do you think of when I ask, “What are some of the biggest problems in Trumbull High School?” Luckily, you probably can’t think of too much. Maybe how long it takes to get around the school, how nobody uses their lockers, maybe even some of the classes themselves.
Still, while people obsess over these problems, there is a glaring issue blatantly apparent in one of the most concentrated areas of students in the school: The Cafeteria. More specifically, the dreaded, horrific, soul taking lunch lines.
School lunch lines are notorious for being long, especially considering there are hundreds of kids every lunch block who get in line. However, this problem, which is normally manageable, is being severely exacerbated by a few key factors at Trumbull High:
1: The Length. With the switch to the new schedule 2 years ago, the lunch periods were reduced from a typical 45 minutes to only 30 minutes. This means that there is both less time to actually get your food, and less time to eat it once you have it. Most of the time, if you’re unlucky enough to get there late, you’ll be lucky to get a few bites of your food before the bell rings.
2: Concentration In Specific Lines. Another big problem, which unfortunately is mostly impossible to solve, is the mass concentration of people in the Deli and Pizza lines. Being the most popular lines, they fill up incredibly fast so the amount of people is oftentimes overwhelming.
3: Speed. While something like the pizza line goes fast because it’s grab and go, the Deli line goes incredibly slowly due to make it yourself style of sandwiches. While this ability to customize is essential to the deli line’s appeal, most employees are used to making sandwiches fast, meaning that it takes a lot longer to get through.
Now, all three of these reasons are valid, but they are unfortunately things we can’t control. However, this leads me to my most significant point, something we are entirely in control of yet let undermine us time and time again: line cutters.
Untrustworthy, selfish, arrogant, line cutters are, in reality, the single biggest problem Trumbull High School faces at the moment. As discussed before, lines are slow and long and packed into incredibly short length periods of time. The system is already rough, but unpredictable factors of line cutters break the system entirely.
Picture this: You arrive at lunch as early as you can intend on chowing down on a delicious ciabatta bread sandwich. You’re only the third person in line, so you figure you’ll have more than enough time to get your food and eat with your friends right? WRONG. Because unfortunately for you, an entire phalanx of 20 different people, all friends, just invaded from the left. They turn the door into a choke point, crowding and filtering in from one side of the door in between screams of “Hey bro!” “Let me in bro!” “Yo bro you’ll let me here right?” and many more remarks.
If this wasn’t bad enough, a whole new set of people invaded from the right, doubling the traffic right at the door. Instead of having a straight coordinated line that you can get through quickly, you have a bunch of teenage animals cutting the line like petty elementary schoolers denying you any chance of getting in. Despite being the 3rd person in line, you are now stuck there for the entire rest of lunch, and by the time you finally get a chance to order, lunch is over and you spend the day hungry.
It is truly, one of the most aggravating experiences a student can have and is denying each student an equal chance to eat at school that they are entitled to have. You can’t change immature mobs of people that rush in from the sides, but you can take measures to prevent it.
The first, and most obvious solution, is to have rails marking out a clear path for the line to go. These are already present and effective in the snack line. This would allow for a coordinated line of people to orderly enter the deli line, allowing the people who get there first to enjoy their food. Now, there could be problems with people ignoring the rails and going through them, which brings me to my second solution: Have a supervisor stand there. I know this sounds ridiculous. We’re high schoolers! We don’t need a supervisor to stand there to make sure people don’t cut the line! I agree with you, but sadly, because of the agitators who have broken the system, this is the point we are at.
A supervisor at the line would ensure that people have an incentive not to cut, and while it wouldn’t be perfect, it would prevent the massive influx of people that ruin it for everybody else. Whether you get lunch at school or bring it from home, heed my warning and help us do something about this un-noticed problem. Students, no matter who they are, deserve the right to eat at lunch, especially if they got there in time to both order and eat their food. To have arrogant students showing up 20 minutes late, thinking they can deny students that right is a complete undermining of the principles THS stands for. Do something, so the next time a student gets in line early to enjoy a sandwich after a long day, THEY CAN.