<p>The pros and cons of each type? Personally, I prefer closed campuses.</p>
<p>Many high schools do not have enough room for the entire student body to have lunch at the same time, so an open campus is a necessity.
Both my daughters attended schools with an open campus, as did I, and while I can see the reasoning for a closed campus, it wasnt practical.</p>
<p>My son had an open campus and it worked great. Guess it depends on the surrounding community and the student culture.</p>
<p>Our high school was theoretically closed. They ran multiple half period lunch periods to accommodate everyone.</p>
<p>My junior high had several different lunch periods, but younger Ds high school had a difficult enough time with scheduling, I don’t think they wanted to throw another complication into the mix.</p>
<p>we had 3 lunch periods, however when i went there seniors could leave for lunch. I seem to remember that they changed it later on and that juniors who made honor roll could leave as well but I could be wrong about that. It’s been awhile.</p>
<p>we also had that if you had a study hall to end your day, you could leave early… as long as you had a ride home and your parents signed a form saying it was ok.</p>
<p>Juniors and seniors can leave lunch at our high school. I think it should be extended to sophomores.</p>
<p>I think kids (at least in this area) need to experience some of that autonomy. Juniors and seniors not only leave at lunch, but they leave for off-campus (CC) classes, and free periods and vocational-technical assignments.</p>
<p>We have multiple lunch periods and a closed campus. Seniors can’t leave and come back even if they have a study hall, want to get lunch, etc. It’s really annoying.</p>
<p>My high school had over 5,000 students and just had two lunch periods.</p>
<p>At my son’s school, all 3000 students eat lunch at the same time. There are no lunch tables. They eat outside on the grass or in the school hallways.</p>
<p>It is a closed campus, so they cannot leave for lunch.</p>
<p>We could leave for lunch when I was in high school (which I greatly appreciated). My kids have a closed campus (which I also greatly appreaciate!). My teenage-self would be appalled to hear me say this, but I think letting kids leave for lunch is just asking for trouble. Too many cons, including:</p>
<p>– Going out to lunch (for a 30-40 minute lunch period) usually means fast food. Do we really need our kids driving through McDonald’s every day?</p>
<p>– There will always be some kids who can’t make it back from lunch in time, disrupting the following class period and creating more work for the attendance office and school disciplinarians.</p>
<p>– Some kids will use the opportunity to do things they shouldn’t.</p>
<p>– Leaving campus increases the chances of something bad happening: a car accident, an injury, an abduction, etc. While the chances might be small, mightn’t the school be liable for something that happens while the kids are under their care during the school day?</p>
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<p>Totally agree. I’m sure it works fine at some schools… especially if there are places to eat nearby, or if a lot of kids live close enough to walk home for lunch. Not the case at my kids’ school, so an open lunch would probably cause more problems than it’s worth.</p>
<p>My girls usually had lunch in groups at friends houses. Senior year, D3 had 3 hours in the middle of the day where she left for CC. A friend had the same schedule and they carpooled.</p>