The biggest problem is the plan to shorten the lunch periods. The administration of Steinmetz would be harming students in many ways — nutritionally, academically, mentally, and socially. 

 • Many people who eat slowly wouldn’t have enough time to eat. In elementary school we had short lunch periods. There wasn’t enough time to finish our food. • Some students use the lunch periods to work on homework. 

 • Some people use lunch to clear their minds, to recharge and relax. 

 • Lunch is the only time we’re actually allowed to be social and to be themselves. Other high schools have not proposed cutting the lunch periods. The reasoning at Steinmetz by the longer school day committee is that it would calm the environment. But cutting the time of the lunch period would not change the fights at Steinmetz. We have seen very few fights occurring during lunch.

We also disagree with the idea of lengthening all the class periods. We think a better plan that would help us would be to add a 9th period that would be study hall.