We’ve heard tonight from multiple West Seattle High School students about an announcement that apparently affects most Seattle Public Schools high schools: Starting next Monday, less than two weeks into the new school year, high-school lunchtime will be split into two. Here’s a screenshot of the announcement sent to WSHS families. One WSHS student, Lemuel Turpaud, asked us to publish this message about it:
I am a member of West Seattle High School, their ASB, and many clubs, and I have an important message to share to the community. Seattle Public Schools will be requiring all high schools in the district to change from one unified lunch to two separate lunches on Monday.
This proposal will kill clubs at the high school. Last March the West Seattle Rocketry Club reached out to the West Seattle Blog, and from our amazing community received over $1,200 to fund our rocketry competition. This support from the community allowed for the team to continue their project, and have financial safety going into the next year. Now with the change of school lunch policy, the Rocketry Club and other student run clubs will be facing a much larger problem than funding. Splitting the lunch period divides students’ only shared free time to meet and join clubs. This decision will kill many clubs, specifically the smaller clubs that are created as passion projects by dedicated members of the school; Rocketry Club being one of those.
Students districtwide from almost ten schools are planning on walking out on Monday, September 15th ,if the policy is not reversed.
We ask the West Seattle community to stand with us. Please contact the school board and urge them to preserve a unified lunch period so student clubs, opportunities, and community can continue to thrive. Thank you.
– Lemuel Turpaud, Class of 2026
Another WSHS student sent the link to an online petition about this plan and other changes/problems in the district. We will be contacting the district first thing in the morning to find out more about this change (including why it, and the bell-time changes that will result, wasn’t impe
