A new policy has been put into effect at New Ulm Public High School. The policy states that if you have a failing grade in any class you automatically lose your open lunch for the next three weeks. Open lunch is a “open” period during the school day in which students are able to leave campus for 55 minutes to eat lunch wherever a person chooses.

The loss of an open lunch is particularly irritating to students. This is because even if you get your grade back up before the three week period is up, or if the failing grade was a mistake by a teacher, you are unable to earn your open lunch back.

Should the school really be doing this?

Without bias, I will attempt to decide whether this is reasonable or unreasonable.

In terms of student reasonability it does make sense. If a persons grade has dropped to the point of failing, this incentive may help get said grade back up. Open lunch is also said to be a privilege, so not doing well or not trying in school is certainly a good reason to take away a privilege. On the other hand, open lunch is still lunch and should not be classified as a privilege. While failing a class is bad, it’s not nearly as bad as getting into actual trouble while out on open lunch. Poor behavior during open lunch would definitely result in a disciplinary action, such as taking it away.

So in conclusion, even though going off campus for lunch is a privilege, to me it doesn’t make sense to take it away from students over a failing grade.