Being a middle-schooler is rough. The transition between elementary and high school is full of new experiences, new classmates and new levels of stress. And according to middle school students, the amount of time given to them during their lunches doesn’t help.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends students get around 20 minutes to eat lunch, beginning when they sit down with their food. This amount of time is recommended so that students are allowed to both eat their food and socialize with their classmates and friends.

Maya Landwehr, a seventh-grade student, recorded the time of a daily lunch. Overall the lunch lasted about 38 minutes. This did not mean that the students had 38 minutes to eat, though.

After being released from class, students are told to sit at tables and wait for the rest of their classmates to join them. This usually takes about 5-10 minutes. After every studentin the grade has gotten to the commons, the students are released table by table. From there, kids take about another 10 minutes or so to get their food. So when students sit down, they have about 18 minutes of their lunch left.

Seventh-grader Marshall Lewis said that he felt the process of releasing students to get food could be faster.

“You just have to be efficient in eating since tables are dismissed and you could be sitting there for a long time,” Lewis said. “I would definitely try to make it more equal in the table dismissal since tables are always being dismissed at different times, but there is not too much I would change overall.”

Powell Middle School Principal Mr. Kyle Rohrer, said that the reasoning behind releasing students table by table is to give lunches more structure.

“To get them to the table,” Mr. Rohrer said. “I feel like it kind of sets the structure and then we have control over how many kids are in line.”

Eighteen minutes is not a bad amount of time in a lunch period for students, except many students do not end up finishing their lunches.

“The kids are given a choice of eating the whole of their meals or going outside,” seventh-grader Kiki Hayano said. “It leads to many of the middle-schoolers not finishing their food and running outside.”

Mr. Rohrer said teachers watch during lunches to see when most students are finished eating and that the time that kids are released isn’t set.

“It’s probably more of a general feeling that kids are getting done eating,” Mr. Rohrer said. “It’s kind of just more of observation.”

This seems to be a common problem, with many students wishing their recess time and lunch periods were separate. When asked how he would change his lunch schedule if he could, sixth-grader Evan Whitlock mentioned this as well.

“I would make lunch 30 minutes,” Whitlock said. “And have a 15-minute recess before.”

Added Hayano: “If I could change the schedule, I would give kids more time to eat and a set recess time. Kids can’t go out [to recess] early or late.”

While many students said they would define a recess time if they could change their lunch periods, some wished for a longer time in the commons so they could socialize a bit more.

“Lunch is one of the only times we get to have conversations with our friends,” eighth-grader Megan Jacobsen said. “We aren’t given enough time to eat all of our food and talk with our friends.”

Others just wished for more time to eat.

“I think we get 15 to 20 minutes and I don’t think it’s enough time because I’m still eating sometimes while people are getting dismissed,” eighth-grader Jace Hyde said. “I would change it by making the lunch period longer by like 10 to 20 minutes.”

Added eighth-grader Anna Bartholomew: “I think that we should have a longer period of time so we can eat all our food. If I could change it, I would make it at least 30 minutes long.”