Free your children: A longer lunch

Throughout high school, I imagine we have all had the idea pop into our minds that school feels like a punishment. Sitting in hour or hour and a half long classes, oftentimes barely moving or speaking, is for many, simply torture. And worst of all, is that the one escape we’re given to recharge and socialize is lunch: a period that shockingly amounts to approximately as little as eight percent of our total school day. 

Samo students, the majority of whom are at school for seven hours every day, are only afforded 35 minutes of lunch. Shave off the 10-15 minutes it can often take to wait in abhorrently long lunch lines, and many students are left with essentially no time to actually recuperate from the hours of school they have just, and subsequently will endure. 

This issue is not just that this is undesirable–yes, no one wants to be cooped up in a room for a third of their day–but that it is completely unhealthy and counterproductive to proper learning. Schools across the country collectively ignore this fact, that time outside, and breaks for students, are of essence to our development. 

There is a laundry list of data to support this. Even simply getting extended sunlight throughout the day has been associated in countless peer-studies with less risk of developing almost every life threatening disease, increased mental health, better sleep, and essentially bettering every ailment that is touted as “infecting Gen-Z”. 

Policymakers and educators talk about the inverse dangers of adolescents being stuck alone inside on their devices, but are blindly ignorant to the fact that they have an actionable way of challenging this problem- giving us actual time outside where we can socialize during the most active part of our day. 

The core argument against this increase in lunch is based in fallacy. There is this idea that schools have zealously stuck with, that increased class time automatically translates to increased learning. The fact is, everything we know about memory consolidation and comprehension is contrary to this. 

In a 2025 meta-analysis published in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review that analyzes the results of 37 peer-reviewed studies, researchers determined the importance of wakeful rest (e.g. breaks like lunch), and the lack thereof, in actually being able to retain and properly utilize information. 

The study clearly disputes this idea, that the more material time effectively packed into a school day, the more students will learn. In like manner, giving students lunchtime isn't just a necessity for their nutrition, but for adequately making sure they are taking in the information they are learning. 

I understand that schools by law must meet a certain amount of class time. But the administration also can't sit idly by as we, in what may be the most formative years of our lives, are depleted of integral social time, with a break that barely covers a fraction of our stressful days. Schools like Ardunel High School in Maryland, introduced a 50 minute lunch period, and were able to incorporate it in such a way it noticeably increased schoolwide productivity. I’m not here to claim that it is easy to magically reschedule Samo into giving students a lunchtime free for all. But I will say with a doubt that if the administration really wants to benefit their students, they will figure out a way in which they can give students a longer lunch period that is realistically suitable for our education and wellbeing.