Before, students ate anywhere on the second floor. A group sits near the black box theater, somebody reads curled by the office. Now, those areas are empty. What changed?

At the start of third trimester, Skyline Administration informed Skyline Staff and Community Assistants that lunchtime areas were to be restricted to the Commons, the outdoor commons, A-hall, and C-hall. The black box theater hall and office hall are no longer available.

“We ask students to eat breakfast and lunch in supervised areas,” said Cory McElmeel, Skyline’s principal. “This is to help maintain student, staff, and building safety.”

“When covid protocols were still mandated, we were more lenient where students would eat,” said Martha Stange, Community Assistant and softball coach. “The main reason for allowing more spread out areas for lunch,” said Stange, “was to allow for students who had concerns about Covid space to take their masks off and socially distance from others. Now we want to make sure all students are supervised.”

“Supervising just makes sure that everybody is safe,” continued Stange. Before, Covid was the main threat to safety, so allowing social distancing was more important than supervising. “When kids are in a classroom they are supervised by the teacher and so when they are at lunch they need to be supervised by the lunchroom staff.”

However, for students that don’t want to eat in the designated areas, teacher’s classrooms are available. 

“Students are also permitted to make arrangements to eat in classrooms with staff,” said McElmeel.

“There are many teachers that invite kids to eat in their classrooms,” said Stange. “A student is welcome to ask a teacher to eat in their classroom, however, they need to have a pass that shows what room they will be in on leaving the commons to go to the classroom. Many teachers write one pass that the student just keeps with them for daily identification.”