In the near future, the Tallwood student body will undergo a substantial change to their schedule. Before the year is out, Tallwood students can expect to experience a trial run of one lunch, and if all goes well it will be here to stay.

“The purpose is to give students the opportunity to receive academic support and remediation, meet with teachers, complete missing work, join clubs and activities…” states principal, Dr. James Avila.

On Monday, November 27th, Dr. Avila and a small committee of teachers and administrators met in the schola to discuss the implementation of this one lunch. Using Deep Run High School in Richmond as the template, the committee discussed how to modify the model to best suit the needs of the faculty, staff, and students of Tallwood High School.

“In one lunch, there is a sixty-five minute lunch, in our case it will most likely be a sixty minute lunch, with an A lunch and a B lunch,” states Dr.Avila. As in our current model, the typical five minute transition time will most likely be embedded within the hour.

The lunch is not expected to have any earth-shaking ramifications on the A/B schedule that teacher and students have grown accustomed to. In fact fairly soon into the meeting Dr.Avila suggested it would not be necessary for Tallwood to include a C-day as Deep Run had chosen to do.

“We don’t have a C-schedule, the C-schedule that we’re talking about only has room for seven classes, and we have eight,” states, Dr.Avila. Likewise, there would still be It’s Academic and teachers would still get their planning blocks.

But the meeting was not set in place only to confirm the inevitabilities, it was to discuss the rough edges of the agenda, that is, to answer the questions that Dr. Avila had presented to the group during the meeting.

Committees were created and positions were appointed. Ms. Christine Anderson is the chair for Student Activities and Clubs Schedule, Mr. Cecil Mainor is responsible for creating the duty schedule, and Mrs. Lori Morris leads the Teacher Office Hours and LMC Schedule committee, while Mrs. Meredith Miller is to be at the helm of the Public Relations committee.

One group was responsible for deciding how long the trial window should be to yield adequate, executable data, the other, for creating a working schedule of which teachers would monitor which halls and when, while another group was to help advise teachers on what to during the time, and how to approach students about this change.

Several schools have already implemented one lunch, notably, Princess Anne, First Colonial, and Kellam. The rest of the Virginia Beach City Public High School system is expected to integrate this system as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Dr. Avila had aimed for the week of January 16th, after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but proposed to the sub-committee that he was willing to push it back. Though it is not quite finalized, it is likely that the new trial will take place sometime close to the beginning of second semester.

The most pressing issue to the teachers and staff involved seemed to be ensuring that students truly understood the purpose of the one lunch and took advantage of it as a preview into college life and the workforce. Moreover, that they use the time for its true intentions: make-up work, tutoring or clubs and lunch.

But students have the choice, and it becomes an avenue for them to exercise time-management and prioritization. It is the freedom that most students have sought since they got to high school because though it is monitored for safety, there is no way to force students to go anywhere or do anything. The students truly have to be intrinsically motivated and choose what to do with their time.

Below are the stories included in Volume 3, Issue 4 of The Roaring Gazette:

Tallwood to try a one lunch schedule by Aniyah Lewis

Drugs at Tallwood: An honest conversation by Noelani Stachurski

Tallwood students react to recent state election by Chris Purkiss

Lion Voices: What is your favorite class? by Frances Summers

Meet a Lion: Mrs. Zhang by Mitchell Durant

Do grades motivate students? by Khyannia Banks

Meet a Lion: Mr. Jason Ordonio by Aaliyah Alli

U.S. should recognize the contributions of Latina women by Ashley Archila-Ventura

“Kevin (probably) Saves the World” is (definitely) worth your time by Morgana Nicholson

Don’t bother boarding this train by Ashley Mallinson

Blandness reigns at the multiplex by Ashley Mallinson