For the first semester of the 2024 school year, and for the first time at the Salida High School, sophomores have been granted the opportunity to have off-campus lunches. 

The decision to give sophomores this privilege was made partly because the administrative team wanted to give sophomores the chance to show that students can make good decisions, and partly because there were too many sophomores already going off-campus for the administrative team to keep up with. 

The school Principal, Jesse Hull, said; “We want to empower kids to make good decisions and when they show us that they are making good decisions we want to reward them.” 

So far, this decision has gone well. According to the Salida High School dean, Abigail Cooksey, there has not been any increase in attendance issues with the tenth graders. “Our sophomore class is really crushing it on attendance,” she said. However, if there is an increase in attendance or behavior issues, this privilege could be revoked. 

“We’re doing this as a trial to see if it makes sense for everybody and to see if it’s safe and healthy.” Hull said that the school’s administrative team will reevaluate in December of this year and decide if the school will go back to limiting sophomores to staying on campus for lunch. 

Cooksey explained, “Things that would change this privilege would be students making poor choices off-campus. That might include driving, that might include the way that they show up in the community”

Both the principal and the dean expressed their concern over students making poor decisions while off-campus during school hours. “The thing I always fear is students getting in a car together and getting in a car accident,” said Hull, “Sophomores shouldn’t be getting in cars because they are on graduated licenses where it is illegal for a sophomore to drive with other kids in the car.” 

While both are reasonable fears, but have not been a common occurrence so far, the biggest downside to the decision to let sophomores have off-campus lunch is the effect on the cafeteria. 

Cooksey explained, “It does drastically change the number of students and that is the legitimate downside because it is affecting our cafeteria funding.” With fewer students eating on-campus, the cafeteria is more limited, and it is harder to estimate how many students will get school lunch on that day. Another concern of the administrative team is what students are eating for lunch off-campus. 

“We want kids to eat healthy at lunch and food service always has really good healthy meals for us,” Hull explained. Cooksey encourages students to eat lunch on-campus to help the cafeteria. 

So far, the decision to give sophomores the option to have lunch off-campus has gone well, and will hopefully continue to do so.