This time last year, upperclassmen throughout the building were bracing for impact as freshman office time ended and hundreds of new faces flooded the lunchtime halls, rushing to secure the best spots to eat before Lunch & Learn was open to all four grades. But while past freshman classes were able to access Lunch & Learn by late November, the Class of 2027 will spend the entirety of 2023 in what students affectionately referred to as “freshman jail.”
Administration made this change because of logistical concerns and the desire to match the switch to Lunch & Learn with the break in semesters, since, as Dr. Johnson pointed out, “The January time frame gives us a natural break in the year to make a shift, [while] the November timeframe does not allow us as much of that. It’s an evaluation of how we want to manage that time better to make it more feasible and how many more students we’re introducing to that time.”
Dr. Johnson says the decision of the freshmen’s release was made based on a variety of logistical factors, highlighting that “it’s a crowded time, and we take note of how we manage it, how the hallways look, and what procedures need to be changed before we move to allow more students to have that time during the day.” Put simply, it’s easy to observe that keeping freshmen out of Lunch & Learn limits the number of students in hallways and collaborative spaces at any time. By delaying the freshmen’s introduction to Lunch & Learn, staff are able to spend the first half the year managing less chaotic and crowded hallways and gives them more time to perfect Lunch & Learn procedures.
Despite this, some students disagree with the reasoning behind extending office time. It’s generally accepted that, as Dr. Johnson put it, “The whole purpose of why 9th graders don’t start with Lunch & Learn is to hopefully build some good habits with accessing that time and to help freshmen get adapted to the freedom and responsibility of Lunch & Learn.” However, some students wonder if office time for freshmen will aid in developing healthy habits or stunt the social integration of freshmen into the school.
This includes Callie Borden ’25, who argues that “it should last until the end of September.” They recall, “I often ended up ditching it for club meetings, and it didn’t help me get adjusted to LM at all.” Like many others, Borden worries about the relative isolation of freshmen during lunch, and remembers the difficulty of talking to friends in other grades or connecting with clubs as a freshman when confined to a teacher’s learn or the cafeteria. Shira Dorff ’26 also opposed the policy change, saying that while it did help them adjust to the school, “It made attending clubs much more difficult. I think it should last until Halloween, but having it last until January is such a bad idea.” Dorff recognizes the idea that extending Lunch & Learn would prevent fights and misbehavior from new students but still objects, saying that while “there are individuals who abuse Lunch & Learn, they can be assigned to a teacher or disciplined appropriately. Individuals who are doing well in their classes and understand the responsibility of being a student at LM should not need that amount of time.”
For students opposed to the change, or freshmen hoping for a reprieve, Dr. Johnson did leave a small hope of flexibility, adding that “there might be the possibility that it happens in December or ends a bit earlier, but we identified January as a reasonable timeframe to move forward.” While this new policy may keep freshmen separated from the rest of the building, slowing down their access to clubs and mixed-grade social spaces, from Dr. Johnson’s perspective, a few months of wait is worthwhile, as administration prioritizes smoothing out operations and keeping students safe.
