Whether it is snacking in class or eating lunch in the cafeteria, food is a huge part of most high schoolers’ lives. At GHS, students must stay in the building for lunch because there is no open campus policy. Part of the rule is that students are not allowed to order food to the school.
Some students at GHS have been arranging for food to be delivered to the school through sites such as DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats and others. They have been ordering food before their lunch periods, during study halls or having parents call it in.
“We don’t want strangers in the building who don’t necessarily belong,” said Vice Principal Mrs. Theresa Huttman. “We just can’t have strangers in the building to deliver food.”
Students may prefer fast food, but it can be dangerous to welcome strangers into the school, according to the administration. It is also against the student handbook to order food to the building unless a parent drops it off. Although safety is a part of why food delivery is an issue, there are other reasons that the school doesn’t allow students to order food.
“How we got to this point of having to ban all that was simply because of pressure it put on the office people,” Principal Todd Mueller said. “The fact that all the office ladies would quit because it puts way too much pressure on them.”
The office staff who work in the front office play a huge part in why the school doesn’t allow students to order food. When food gets delivered, it can put pressure on them because if a student ordered food and it isn’t paid for, then the front desk staff have to figure out who is going to pay for the food. The other reason that food deliveries are not allowed is because sometimes students would order their food and it would show up wrong or something would go missing, then the students would become upset.
“I get why they are strict about it,” sophomore Hayden Turner said. “But at the same time, I want to eat my Jimmy John’s sandwich.”
Although there are many people that are disappointed with the open campus policy being strongly enforced, it should be recognized that the school is trying to keep the stress off of the staff. If students choose to go against the rules, their food will be confiscated until the end of the day as a reminder of the policy. Even though the students themselves can not order food their parents can always surprise them with lunch.
“So the parents bring it, we don’t have any of the problems that I mentioned, the orders not going to be wrong everything’s going to be paid for,” Mueller said. “ And there’s not going to be anything inappropriate in it so that’s why parents at any time can bring it up.”