Seattle high school students plan to walk out over new lunch policy

Students at several Seattle high schools plan to walk out of class on Monday in protest of a new district policy that splits one lunch period into two.

The seven affected schools include Ballard, Garfield, Ingraham, Lincoln, Nathan Hale, Roosevelt, and West Seattle high schools, according to The Seattle Times.

Students said the new schedule will disrupt clubs, limit social time, and divide the student body.

“The issues it brings up are horrendous,” Leo Falit-Baiamonte, a junior at Nathan Hale High School, told KIRO Newsradio on Friday. “I’ve also talked to students who say going to clubs and hanging out with their friends during lunch is the reason they go to school.”

The walkout starts at 11 a.m., with students marching to school district headquarters. There, they plan to hold a noon rally with speeches.

“We also will have a lunch in front of the building to symbolize what they’re trying to take away, which is all of us as a community having lunch and spending time with our friends and peers,” Falit-Baiamonte said.

Thousands sign petition to stop Seattle high school lunch change

An online petition to stop the change had gathered more than 5,000 signatures by Friday afternoon.

District officials told The Seattle Times that serving up to 1,800 students in a single 30-minute lunch period is not feasible with current staffing levels, and extending lunch to an hour could violate state instructional time requirements.

“In the past, we were aware that there were potentially some of our high schools not following those regulations,” Rocky Torres-Morales, SPS associate superintendent, told the media outlet. “The district was not deemed out of compliance because the state looks at its overall compliance in aggregate. But we did instruct (the schools) a few years ago to make sure their schedules align with state law.”

Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.

Follow @FrankLenziKIRO