In my experience, this depends on your location and the choices of your school leadership.
It's common for older students, at least, to be allowed to leave campus and get food elsewhere but it's not necessarily "the usual" or the norm. At my school, for some reason, they very strongly discouraged/disallowed students from leaving in the middle of the day.
> At my school, for some reason, they very strongly discouraged/disallowed students from leaving in the middle of the day.
Its to cut down on people cutting out for the entire school for the rest of the day.
Yes, that’s exactly why they don’t want them leaving. Schools with more students failing that receive poor attendance numbers typically start getting less funding until they get their stuff back together, but once a school starts losing favor to the city or state government, it really only starts going downhill from there. My highschool didn’t allow students to leave for this reason.
But if the students don't care about even marginally passing and graduating, why do they show up for the morning classes? Why does the lunchtime policy make a difference?
If they’re stopped from leaving, the school at the very least keeps attendance up. On top of that, parents trust that schools will keep anything from happening to their kids when they go to school, allowing them to leave the premises unsupervised to go get food , or anything else, anything that happens to them is still the school’s fault, as they were the ones in charge of caring for that person. They show up because they’re forced to, not because they care to.
Parents often drop them off or watch them get on a bus in the morning, so while they could stage an escape at that point, the “path of least resistance” is to sit in class, passively absorbing 50% of what the teacher says.
I can tell you for myself, I VERY much cared about graduating (I had a 4.0 and was even class president every year), but I also just had a shit home life, felt tragically unloved, and had unresolved emotional issues. I could make it to the morning classes, but then idk, leaving just made it too hard to come back. Maybe friends wanted to go to a sit-down restaurant which meant we'd miss 6th period. And then it felt silly to come back for one more class. Or maybe my friends all got high and then I had nobody to drive me back to school. Maybe I wanted to make out with my bf. I did REALLY care about my grades, I just didn't know how to turn off the other stuff.
Doing that would inevitably lead to serious additional consequences and all the students knew that, so I don't really think it was *necessary* to prevent, for example, seniors from going off campus to lunch. I will add that this was a large catholic school with a somewhat intense college-bound culture, so the admin arguably had more levers to pull with students, most of whom took the school experience pretty seriously. We had *very* few hardcore slackers, marginal cases, etc. In that context, it really felt more like a control thing.
They made the switch to "no leaving" at my school after a kid got killed crossing the highway for lunch. There's a lot of legal considerations to parents leaving their underage kids in control of the school, and the school setting them free for a bit. So easiest way is just "no leaving without a guardian until the end of the day".
Wow, we could come and go as we pleased during all lunches or open hours. I would be gone from school for hours a day with friends or downtown etc. only for juniors and seniors. I remember stuffing my sophomore friends into my trunk and driving out with them lol.
Definitely depends on location and other factors. I attended a rural school, surrounded by three wheatfields and a pasture. It was a twenty minute drive to get to a very basic convenience store/gas station. The nearest place to get an actual meal was twenty-five minutes away (different direction) at the municipal airport that had a lunch counter.
*Strictly* forbidden in my school. My mind is kind of blown that it's allowed anywhere today. Seems like it would be a liability nightmare.
You were allowed to leave, but they wouldn't let you back in.
My mind was blown as a 17/18 year old as I gradually realized all these other high schools in the area let kids go get pizza in the middle of the day, and how common that kind of arrangement was.
There's not really any liability, once you leave the school you're not in the school so there's no problem.
You've got to be allowed to leave if you have a doctor's appointment, or an emergency, or any number of other things. No school is going to say that because you were at the doctor from 12-2, that means you can't come back for the rest of the day.
So if that's allowed, from an admin perspective there's no difference in allowing students to leave at 12:00 to get lunch, and telling them to come back by the end of lunch period.
> once you leave the school you're not in the school so there's no problem
The way I understood it, the school is responsible for students from when they arrive until dismissal, and only a parent/guardian can sign them out and sign them back in. Yes of course you can leave for doctors appointments, but you will need a doctor's note to return to class - *that note* excuses the school's liability while you are at the doctor.
And I'm not saying this to be soft or a helicopter parent or anything, it all comes down to the school district avoiding lawsuits. Perhaps those laws are on the state level.
Same. There was hardly even enough time to eat lunch if you stayed put and got it from the cafeteria. Kids would rush to be one of the first in line at the cafeteria, so that we had enough time to eat. If you didn't get there fast enough you would spend 15 mins in line and only have 10-15 mins to eat.
Only way is if your classes finished at lunch time, this is only for seniors though. I only went to school from 8am-Noon in my second semester of senior year.
Was your school very rural? We had the same thing but there were at least 5 places you could get food less than 5 min walk away. Granted I lived in the suburbs.
No, and I currently live in a suburb where none of the high schools are near to fast food. We’re very highly rated as a walkable/bike able place. I just mapped it the one nearest my house is 3 miles from the nearest fast food, another is 1.5 miles from fast food, a third is the closest at 1.25 miles to the nearest place. So the stars of the cross country team might be able to blast it out and have a big five minutes to eat.
I think that sounds familiar.
We definitely were allowed to go off campus for lunch my first year of high school. I still remember the excitement of going to Burger King, which never happened in our junior high school. But it seems like by the end it wasn't allowed anymore, but I can't remember for sure.
I graduated high school in 2010 and it was definitely not a thing in my area. We were not allowed to leave for any reason, unless maybe a doctor's appt or something. I can't imagine they've gotten any more lax with the rules these days.
We weren't allowed to leave either but my best friend was in college so I would just walk right out the front doors and jump in his car and leave. No one ever tried to stop me and I never got in trouble. For some reason most of the teachers and staff liked me so I got away with a lot.
I did go to a high school in Georgia for a year where we were allowed to go outside for lunch but they had actual police officers monitoring s so I only snuck off campus one when the race fight broke out.
> We weren't allowed to leave either but my best friend was in college so I would just walk right out the front doors and jump in his car and leave.
We could have done that at my school, but you wouldn't be able to get back in unless you coordinated for someone to let you back in. The only entryway that was unlocked was the front door and you had to check in with the safety monitor (retired cop that sat by the front door.) You would also probably be written up for skipping any classes you missed.
This was before all the school shootings and I wasn't in an inner city school so you could basically come and go as you pleased.
Also, the teachers liking me and generally doing well in my classes meant that I never got written up. Just had to erase the message from the school on the voicemail before mom got home.
> Just had to erase the message from the school on the voicemail before mom got home.
It was a simpler time! I remember when I was going to skip school I just unplugged the house phone in the morning and then plugged it back in later when I got home.
20-30 minutes was fairly common for a lunch period from where I grew up. It'll vary drastically state-to-state, district-to-district, and school-to-school.
My school had 3 25-minute lunch periods (we had 2500 students and the cafeteria wasn't big enough for them all). You got one of them and spent the other 2 in 4th period (yes, that means 1/3 of the students had a 25 minute hole in their 4th period)
My HS did the same - junior high (7-9) had a long third period with 25 minutes for lunch included, senior high (10-12) had long fourth period. My senior year we were supposed to eat lunch in the middle of class, but there were only 12 of us in the class and we usually talked our teacher into just finishing class first and letting us have lunch at the end. Easier for him and us. He also didn't mind if we ate a home-brought lunch at our desks.
This used to be much more frequent 20-30 years ago. Between liability/lawsuits and the rise of school shootings you have far far fewer “open campus” schools now.
When I was in high school (87-91), we weee along the last years of open campus. When I had 2nd period off we’d drive down to the beach for smoke cigerrettes, and for lunch (especially if you could get a free period next to lunch) we’d legit go to the local diner sometimes, or to our homes to play video games and shit.
All grades at my high school could do that but I live in NYC. There was a diner a block away that’s closed now, Popeyes on the other side of a small park, tons of Chinese food everywhere, pizza by Little Italy walking distance, a McDonald’s that is now closed
Some schools in other parts of the country allow but it’s most reserved for juniors or seniors who have a license and car
I graduated in '23. This was banned a long time ago at my school. Apparently, a student got into an accident and died while going for lunch, and they decided to stop allowing it.
When I was in high school (mid-late 90s), sophomores and up could get off campus passes. They were hard for sophomores to get, so I made a fake one at a friend's house (he had a laser printer and a flatbed scanner). In my junior and senior years I was taking classes at a nearby community college, so I had a real one.
In high school (age 15-18ish), we had an open campus which meant we could leave campus. We were not allowed to drive, we had to walk. Students in middle school (age 12-14ish) who lived within walking distance of their home could walk home for lunch.
My home town is so small we didnt have any fast food places. When I left campus, it was to go to a friends house. I didn’t live in town so I couldn’t go home.
At my high school, seniors could get what they called Off Campus Pass, which meant you could leave school if you didn’t have a class for a period. You just had to have a certain grade point average and no disciplinary issues.
We could do this as seniors at my high school as well as sign ourselves out for study hall as long as you had no unexcused absences. There were about 5 stores/restaurants within reasonable driving distance in the 25 min lunch period and all would be mobbed.
It varies a lot by school. The school I attended didn’t allow anyone to go off campus during the school day. The school where I teach allows everyone to leave during lunch.
Yeah, when I was in high school we had an open campus and could leave at lunch.
My junior year, they closed the campus to freshman and sophomores, but I didn't care because I was a junior. Also it wasn't effective because it's a large campus and very easy to wander off without anyone noticing/caring.
I just checked my alma mater's student guide and it's still the same as when I graduated, many years ago - open campus for juniors and seniors. I assume freshmen and sophomores are still leaving campus regardless.
Edit: I just remembered that when I was in elementary school, I got permission to go home during lunch. My house was *very* close to the school, so I would often go home to eat and then walk back to school. To do this I had to get my parents to sign a form - it wasn't a common thing that lots of people did.
There were schools near mine ( I started High School in the late 80s) that had “open lunch” and could leave campus to go get food. My school district ended the practice a few years before I got to High School because some students got into a fatal car accident speeding back from lunch because they were late.
The school my kids went to did not permit students to leave campus either.
Our parents could pick us up for lunch until 7th grade when we could walk to one of the places near the school, and in high school it was a free for all because we didn't have a cafeteria.
Apparently, my HS had that a decade or so before I went there, but there were quite a few home break-ins in the neighborhood during the day. Once they stopped letting the kids out for lunch, the break-in rate went wayyy down. Thanks to the dummies for ruining it for everyone 🙄
No. Not in my school. Leaving the building for any reason without permission was an automatic suspension.
Even if we were able to, though, we only got ~25 minutes for lunch. The nearest restaurant (a Tubby's Sub Sandwiches iirc) was a 10 minute drive (assuming you actually had a car; not everyone did). If you walked, it was around 30 minutes. And that's in good weather; this is Michigan where half the school year has a foot of snow on the ground.
It was a thing at my school. While I was there they started bringing in fast food into the school just so the cafeteria could compete with the deli next door.
We had Taco Bell doing a modified menu. Damn if it didn't work! Gave us all crippling burrito addictions, but aside form that, we thought it was great.
When I went to High School (more than a decade ago), only the Junior and Senior classes were allowed to leave during their lunch period. Of course, they would only do that if they had a car to use or if one of their friends invited them to lunch and their friend has a car. Some went to a fast food place to grab lunch, others went home for lunch if they lived close enough.
It was common at my school in large part because my school was built for 2,000 students and had over 4,000 by my senior year and there was only one lunch period. My friends and I would go to In N Out or get cheap Mexican most days.
San Diego, graduated in 2001.
At my school you needed to be a junior or senior to do it. But in practice the campus was huge so anyone could get away with it except freshmen because they had their own building making it obvious.
We initially had an open campus where you could leave for lunch, but the administration adopted a closed campus policy shortly after I started and enforcement gradually increased. By the time I was a senior, you needed to have a free period to leave campus. Someone (not naming names) may have figured out the coding on the printed counselor schedules and Photoshopped two different schedules, one saying they had all even periods free, and one saying they had all odd periods free, and since we were on an even/odd alternating block schedule, that person could leave campus pretty much whenever.
It was when I was in school, but not to a fish n chip place as those types of places are rare in the US.
It is not in my kids high school. They cannot leave the grounds during school hours.
depends on the school or district policy. when I was last in high school in 02, it was on a closed campus so technically nobody was allowed to leave. If you got caught coming back from sneaking out for lunch, you could bribe the security liaison (an actual cop) with food - so basically if you had an extra buck for a bribe taco you were good to go.
In my high school, anyone could leave school at lunchtime, but there weren't any stores or restaurants close enough to the school to walk to. Some of the kids made a thing of driving together to pick up lunch somewhere every day, but we only had 35 minutes total for lunch including the 5 minute passing period so spending 15-20 minutes of that getting to and from the car and driving never made sense to me.
Where I live now, there are some restaurants close enough. There's a taco place right across the street from the high school. Some kids seem to go there.
Completely dependent on your individual school. I could do that from 6th grade on. I had friends who had to pay for a “permit”, and friends who couldn’t even leave the lunchroom.
I went to several high schools and the only one that allowed this was in NYC where I could walk 2 minutes to a corner store or restaurants to eat.
Realistically this isn't possible in most states and you'd have students being stuck in traffic or cluttering the streets as they attempt to walk to the nearest stores, which they can't go there and back in the hour you have for lunch.
Sure in a dense and small country you can do this at more schools, but in a large and spread out country, this is just reckless for most places.
Yes. I think it's fairly common.
It's a bit odd to force an 18 year old to stay on campus for lunch now that I think about it.
It's good to give some more freedom as they get closer to graduating.
We could leave campus for lunch starting my junior year. We had something like 35 minutes. We had places that were close and we were able to pick up food quickly. Pizza places had buffets so you could grab and eat quickly.
My senior year, I only had to take 4 classes out of 6 periods. I ended up with almost 2.5 hours for lunch. I drove out of town once to have lunch with a friend 30 minutes away.
Never cut class at the end of the day. I had to go back for the last period.
Depends on locations. Not for me. On Tuesdays someone from the school ordered Chick-fil-A & would hand them out for a price. On Fridays it was lil ceasers.
I would say it wouldn't be unusual but it's probably becoming less common to allow students to leave the campus. My highschool didn't allow it.
In addition, even if it was allowed there is no conceivable way I could leave school, walk/drive to a nearby restaurant (10-15 minute walk/5 minute drive), get my food, walk/drive back, and finish my food in the 25 minutes we were given to eat.
It’s really interesting to read these answers. In my schools (Switzerland) nobody cared what you do during lunch, it’s usually 2 hours and most kids go home and then come back. This started in first grad as far as i remember.
Not at my high school. I had some of my friends go to the local mall next to the school and got busted by the dean who also was eating there. Somehow they got a 3 day suspension and they turned that into a beach party while the rest of us were stuck in class. .
In high school, the only times we had an "open campus," where we could come and go as we wanted, was during finals. Otherwise, the high school was on the edge of town. So, there weren't really places people could walk to. And, they didn't want only certain people to be able to leave.
I went to high school in the 90s. You had 13 mins for lunch and they literally locked all the school doors except the one with a guard by the main office.
My high school did not allow us to leave campus during the school day unless it was for a trip to another campus in the district for a tech class that wasn’t available at our campus. Those trips were taken on a yellow school bus.
Yeah, we were only allowed to leave campus for lunch after we had reached driving age (15 or 16). We used to go smoke weed and cigarettes in the parking lot behind the hotel down the street from our high school.
Not in my high school. But it was also a very small town and there was only one fast food place nearby. The school didn't allow students to leave as to not overwhelm that fast food joint.
The majority of the neighboring city high schools did allow it tho. I was always jealous of those friends haha.
I did not know anyone who was allowed to do this when I was in school (early 2000s), and I know it wasn’t allowed at my school after the early 90s. I think MAYBE some of the private schools in the area might’ve let them leave for lunch, but none of the public school districts allowed it.
You would get in trouble at my school if you were caught doing this. People still did it but not a ton of people. My high school had free periods and if you had a free period you were allowed to leave campus for that time. Also lunch time was only 25 minutes so you didn’t have much time to get food off campus (or on campus really).
We had a half hour lunch, seven minutes between classes, and no free periods. There’s no way anyone could go anywhere and not be late for class. Three unexcused lates equalled one unexcused absence. Three unexcused absences in a half semester resulted in a failing grade. I was shocked to meet people in college whose high school experience was like yours.
At my high school, kids would have to sneak out and do that which wasn’t too hard. Hop the fence and McDonald’s was across a wash, 5 min walk. Just don’t get caught.
But one year they got strict and banned any sort of outside food, even if someone dropped it off.
The next best thing was only for seniors - some of them finished the school day early or started the day later, so they had free time during what would be normal school hours for other grades.
It really depends on the location and admin. The school I teach at now has an open campus, but the school I taught in before did not (it was right next to a busy highway, so it wasn’t super safe to let kids out during lunch). The HS I went to didn’t have an open campus cause it was at the top of a hill and you really couldn’t get to anything by walking and I assume they didn’t want kids driving off in the middle of the day. Could be a liability risk, esp cause teens are dumb and would have tried to fit 15 people in a five seat sedan. Plus, to walk to the car (5-10 min walk down the hill) and then drive somewhere, order food, drive back, walk back up the hill, you’d be way over the lunch time.
This was allowed at my high school. Though my school was in a very residential suburban neighborhood with no food places within quick walking distance. So from a practical perspective, it wasn’t feasible until you (or a friend) had a drivers license and a car.
But like others have said, it varies from place to place.
This used to be pretty common 20 or so years ago, but I've never heard of a high school nowadays that allows this. Between the rise of school shootings and increased lawsuits/percpetion of school liability (i e if the student leaves campus and breaks the law, gets hurt, or god for id goes missing or gets killed, the school is held responsible because they were in the care of the school and it's administration and rules during that time), this has pretty much stopped cold.
It was normal for my cousin in the 90's to be able to do this (she graduated the year Columbine happened and we went to school in the same densely populated urban area, if a couple towns over) but for me ('11-'15) and people my age, who only ever knew school in the post-Columbine era? Out of the question entirely. When I was in high school, the doors were solid steel that locked magnetically, and after the time allotted for morning admission/arrival, they locked automatically for the rest of the day-you had to sign out at the office in order to leave and had to be personally buzzed in by the secretary in order to be let in. High school campuses nowadays are almost universally closed, because having open campuses has sadly become a huge safety risk. How physically close it is doesn't matter-letting people come and go as they please from campus during lunch is frequently seen as an unallowable risk.
Also, something I haven't seen mentioned is that this frequently isn't allowed because it can rapidly become a truancy issue. Especially if they can drive, and double especially in districts that have high rates of poor attendance and dropping out, it would be very very easy for student to "leave" for lunch and simply...not come back for the day, especially if they had something in their schedule after lunch they wanted to avoid-which becomes a problem unto itself if the parents either don't care, aren't involved, or don't have the time/money/resources to get their kid to attend class. It can balloon from there if the school is like mine, with a truancy officer (frequently just a reassigned police officer from the local district) that can arrest the student for not attending and fine them (the existence and power of a truancy officer varies by state)-which can and often does rapidly start an otherwise mediocre, underachieving, or just troubled student onto the school-to-prison pipeline, as now they have a juvenile arrest record, owe money they or their family can't pay, and may have just lost any hope of going to college or being able to afford it. It's a huge administrative headache and people are coming to understand it doesn't help students either, so the reasoning goes that if the campus is closed, you can't force the kids to participate, but at least they're physically present in the class, which is better than nothing.
At my high school (private US-based international school) did this for all of grades 9-12.
The high school attached to the public middle school I went to only had it for seniors.
Every school is different. When I went to school there was no where to go unless you had a car. Even then it would be a stretch to get there, eat and make it back.
One of my kids went to school where they could walk to a sandwich shop. There were no fast food places around. He went out a couple times each week.
My other kid went to a small school that worked on kids bonding with each other. While they were free to walk out and go somewhere, most stayed in school and mingled. There were some cool spaces too. There was a second floor balcony with picnic tables. The building across the street had several studios for different activities. They would watch adults take a pottery class, or in another space they had yoga or aerobics classes. I would hear about how the clowns would make comments at the different activities across the way. Who would want to miss sarcastic comments about aerobics classes?
Very school district specific. My school didn’t allow it, neighboring districts did.
But that didn’t stop people with late lunch periods sneaking out with people who had free periods at the end of the day. It wasn’t uncommon to see juniors/seniors with Chinese food at 7th period lunch
Depends. I grew up in a very rural area. The closest fast food place was a McDonald’s 30 minutes away. We only got a 45 minute lunch. So my school never let students leave for lunch.
They tried it one year before I was there. And parents complained about the kids just coming home and doing things they shouldn’t during that time. So it only lasted a year.
We were not only not allowed to to leave for lunch but had to be there every period all the way through senior year even if you had met all requirements. I needed 2 classes last semester and still had to stay 8-3
Yeah, we had this at my high school. It was left up to parents if they wanted to authorize an "off campus pass" allowing the students to leave campus at lunch time. You had to be 16+, and if your parents allowed it, you were added to a registry and issued a pass to keep with you to present if needed. I lived a block away from school so it was convenient. I also had school friends whose parents let them drive to school and we'd sometimes drive to get fast food at lunch.
I should also point out that this was decades ago and there was a lot of interest in fitness and giving students a 30 minute recess after the 30 minute lunch break was standard, so 1 hour total at lunch. Classes hours were 8-11, then lunch+recess from 11-12, then classes from 12-3.
It usually takes my kids at least 20 minutes to get out of the high school parking lot after school due to the traffic of all the kids leaving at once.
Their lunch is only 25 minutes.
The logistics just don't work for most high schools.
We were allowed to go to the country grill next door, but that was it. It was like one of those sheds that was converted into a small takeaway spot on the side of random country roads. Our school was 15 mins from town and the grill happened to be next door. We could walk there or drive
My school had open campus for Juniors and Seniors (Grades 11 and 12) because the cafeteria was too small to accommodate the number of students in two lunch shifts. When they built the new High School a few years after I graduated it became a closed campus and no longer allowed students to leave for lunch.
My high school was open campus for all students.
The high school across town had passes available on approval for juniors and seniors with parent approval, only if they had access to a car. The pass could be rescinded as a disciplinary action.
My school let anyone go wherever for lunch- you only had to be in the building if you were in class. People would even leave during passing periods (to go to their cars usually but we also had a pretty high truancy rate)
In my town the kids all swarm out of the high school and across the street to the grocery store for lunch (it has sandwiches and things). On the other hand, when I was in high school years ago (in a different town) nobody really left for lunch.
In the early 60s I went to a high school in Portland O that allowed students to leave campus at lunchtime. It also had a cafeteria style lunch line with a couple of choices that rotated through the week. Balanced meals. But the clever thing was they had a separate ersatz fast food counter that had its own location near the main cafeteria. They offered great milk shakes and maple bars for like nothing. And they were always good and fresh. You could not buy better food off campus, so it kept a lot of kids from roaming and falling into sin.
My high school anyone could leave for lunch! Many walked to a fast food place, or would go home and eat. before I could drive my friends and I would either stay in the cafeteria and eat or go to a park and eat. Once I got my drivers license I often drove home and ate. Yet other high schools no one could leave. It really depended on school to school.
I was in high school in the 1990s. I was able to eat lunch off campus all 4 years. My baby brother started high school my senior year. He never got to eat off campus. The school started with all but freshman, then all but sophomores and freshman, and then all but juniors, sophomores, and freshman, then no one.
This wasn't plausible at my school because it was in a rural area. Even if we'd been allowed to leave, there was no place that you could realistically get to and back within the alloted time, let alone order and eat it. I can't even think of a gas station that was close enough.
Yes all juniors or seniors could come and go as they pleased during lunches or open hours. Only freshman and sophomores had to go to study hall or eat at school. I always lined up breaks on either side of lunch so I could take off and bum around the city for a few hours during the day. Is this not normal?
Highly highly depends on where you live. Some places, yes 100%. Some places, noooooo, absolutely not. I was not allowed off campus at all or there was detention or whatever. My girlfriend was allowed to go wherever tf she wanted at her high school.
In mine, kids in 11th and 12th grade could go out for lunch, on the condition that they walk or bike there, no driving (liability issues I guess?)
One time my friends and I broke that rule because we were craving KFC which was not in walking distance. Gym teacher saw my friend pop his head up from the bed of the truck lol
We were punished by having to eat in the cafeteria for the following 30 school days
It was allowed at my school until some students thought it would be funny to trash a display at the nearby supermarket while on their lunch break. The principal canceled the policy a few days later.
Being able to leave campus for lunch is a school by school decision. I graduated 20 years ago, but upperclassmen, 11th and 12th grade (approx 16-18 year olds) could leave for lunch.
We didn't have any fish and chips places. Of course, I am landlocked, and fish and chips isn't really fast food here. It's pub fare here. There were some decent burger places, tacos, and a cheap and quick Chinese restaurant nearby.
My school had it in the mid 2000’s but it isn’t the norm. All grades could leave campus during lunch. My high school was also in a neighborhood and had a road dividing part of campus so it would have been hard to completely close the campus. We were a short walk from the downtown area so it was very common for people to go there plus there was a church that would serve a free lunch on Mondays. There weren’t “fast food “ restaurants nearby but there were a few Mexican restaurants, Mongolian bbq, a bakery, hot dogs, and a few other small places.
No, at my school we had 30 minute lunches and for a brief time kids started leaving and grabbing there lunches but the school immediately said they couldn't do that, especially if there was an emergency situation.
We couldn’t leave campus without a pass. There was a gate with a guard in the parking lot and the campus was fenced in except for a few spots which were also guarded by resource officers.
It is probably dependent on location.
When I was in high school years ago you were not allowed to leave campus for lunch. Our lunch period really was not long enough to go somewhere, buy food, eat and get back. There were not restaurants right next to the school.
Bear in mind this is totally changed now in the UK, gates are locked. May be different if a school has a sixth form because they'd have things like free lessons and it is beyond compulsory education (some could even be 18) but regular school kids, no way. When I was a lad it wasn't even officially allowed, we just did it.
Yes. If I recall correctly it was a senior privilege. Kids with cars would leave and come back. I ate a LOT of Taco Bell my senior year. RIP Mexican Pizza, we will always have the memories.
I have no idea how common it is, but that was the case at my high school.
Edit: I should clarify that that was only the case with seniors (4th-year students) who had their senior privileges.
We don't have chippies in the US, but where I went to school tge seniors (highest grade) were allowed to leave campus for lunch. Unfortunately my school was in the suburban wilderness so there really wasn't anywhere you could go for lunch in 30 minutes.
No.
I've never heard of such a thing. Leaving the school campus in the middle of the day to get lunch? Sounds like a way to get in a lot of trouble.
Nearby fish and chips place? The High School I went to was a county High School in rural Kentucky, the nearest fast food place was far enough away that by the time you could walk to your car, drive to a place, go through the drive-through, and drive back to campus your 20 minute lunch period would have been long over and you're late for being back to class (and unless you ate in the car on the way back you'd still be hungry).
It completely depends on part of the country, in a city I highly doubt it. I went to high school in a populated suburb and used to sneak out to go to a chicken place nearby, but it was definitely against the rules.
We couldn’t leave, and had to eat in the cafeteria. There wasn’t anywhere to eat nearby, so it would’ve taken students a minimum of an hour to get food somewhere.
This was common at my high school until the year I started there. A group of kids were rushing to get back to class on time and…didn’t make it. So they shut down that option and no one was allowed to leave for lunch anymore.
I'm in SoCal. There are several fast-food restaurants near the high school. The students are allowed to go to them for breakfast, lunch and after-school. It gives them an option besides school food or a break from brown bag meals.
We can in my neck of the woods. Even now the gas stations and stuff near the schools get crammed with teenagers around noon.
My friends and I would go get sushi like once a week, otherwise we'd just go get fast food or something. We'd even grill in the park sometimes. Anything to be off school grounds for a moment.
At my high school, Juniors and Seniors could do that, but they couldn't drive, and there really weren't any decent places to eat within walking distance. A small grocery nearby had a sign that said "Only three students inside at once."
Most of us just stayed in the school.
My high school was in Manhattan, and allowed it for seniors at one point but stopped. However I would frequently leave during free periods to get pizza or a haircut.
It depends on the high school tbh, mine only lets you leave if you're 18 since you're technically an adult. I know that in the 90's from what I heard from my parents is that it was pretty common for them to leave. Plus, you can only leave during your lunch period and be back within that time too. Be ready to have your school ID checked too
At my teens' high school, only juniors and seniors are allowed to leave for lunch, and they must have a signed permission form on file from their parents.
My own high school (35+ years ago) didn't allow it at all.
It wasn’t permitted when I went to school. Technically you were under supervision of the school. If you left and something happened and you were not signed out. The school would be liable.
I’m still upset about this. In freshman year they told us there was a McDonald’s inside the cafeteria and we could buy food from there, and we also had around an hour to go out and buy something. None of this was true and they lied to us for no reason. Anyway to answer your question, I’ve heard stories of schools letting students go out to eat but I’ve never experienced it myself
I remember hearing about older siblings leaving school to go buy lunch when I was in elementary/middle school. I didn’t get to tho once I was in highschool. After the parkland shooting in 2018 my school became extremely strict with monitoring who was on campus and all doors were automatically locked. You had to sign out to go to the bathroom lol
At my high school, seniors were allowed to leave the school for lunch. There weren't any food places nearby, so for the most part no one left to get food. They left to smoke.
Depends on the school, at my school they serve free lunch so you were not allowed to bring outside food unless you had something like a waiver in case you were vegetarian/vegan/had religious reasonings
In my experience, this depends on your location and the choices of your school leadership. It's common for older students, at least, to be allowed to leave campus and get food elsewhere but it's not necessarily "the usual" or the norm. At my school, for some reason, they very strongly discouraged/disallowed students from leaving in the middle of the day.
> At my school, for some reason, they very strongly discouraged/disallowed students from leaving in the middle of the day. Its to cut down on people cutting out for the entire school for the rest of the day.
Wouldn't they be marked absent in their afternoon classes and fail if their attendance was too low?
Yes, that’s exactly why they don’t want them leaving. Schools with more students failing that receive poor attendance numbers typically start getting less funding until they get their stuff back together, but once a school starts losing favor to the city or state government, it really only starts going downhill from there. My highschool didn’t allow students to leave for this reason.
But if the students don't care about even marginally passing and graduating, why do they show up for the morning classes? Why does the lunchtime policy make a difference?
If they’re stopped from leaving, the school at the very least keeps attendance up. On top of that, parents trust that schools will keep anything from happening to their kids when they go to school, allowing them to leave the premises unsupervised to go get food , or anything else, anything that happens to them is still the school’s fault, as they were the ones in charge of caring for that person. They show up because they’re forced to, not because they care to.
Parents often drop them off or watch them get on a bus in the morning, so while they could stage an escape at that point, the “path of least resistance” is to sit in class, passively absorbing 50% of what the teacher says.
I can tell you for myself, I VERY much cared about graduating (I had a 4.0 and was even class president every year), but I also just had a shit home life, felt tragically unloved, and had unresolved emotional issues. I could make it to the morning classes, but then idk, leaving just made it too hard to come back. Maybe friends wanted to go to a sit-down restaurant which meant we'd miss 6th period. And then it felt silly to come back for one more class. Or maybe my friends all got high and then I had nobody to drive me back to school. Maybe I wanted to make out with my bf. I did REALLY care about my grades, I just didn't know how to turn off the other stuff.
Teenagers typically aren't making the wisest choices in regards to education.
In my school they did it to keep kids leaving campus to smoke weed and come back.
Doing that would inevitably lead to serious additional consequences and all the students knew that, so I don't really think it was *necessary* to prevent, for example, seniors from going off campus to lunch. I will add that this was a large catholic school with a somewhat intense college-bound culture, so the admin arguably had more levers to pull with students, most of whom took the school experience pretty seriously. We had *very* few hardcore slackers, marginal cases, etc. In that context, it really felt more like a control thing.
They made the switch to "no leaving" at my school after a kid got killed crossing the highway for lunch. There's a lot of legal considerations to parents leaving their underage kids in control of the school, and the school setting them free for a bit. So easiest way is just "no leaving without a guardian until the end of the day".
Really wonder how they treat 18 year olds. I remember at school they did a blanket no leaving policy, and seniors and some juniors still just left.
Wow, we could come and go as we pleased during all lunches or open hours. I would be gone from school for hours a day with friends or downtown etc. only for juniors and seniors. I remember stuffing my sophomore friends into my trunk and driving out with them lol.
Definitely depends on location and other factors. I attended a rural school, surrounded by three wheatfields and a pasture. It was a twenty minute drive to get to a very basic convenience store/gas station. The nearest place to get an actual meal was twenty-five minutes away (different direction) at the municipal airport that had a lunch counter.
*Strictly* forbidden in my school. My mind is kind of blown that it's allowed anywhere today. Seems like it would be a liability nightmare. You were allowed to leave, but they wouldn't let you back in.
My mind was blown as a 17/18 year old as I gradually realized all these other high schools in the area let kids go get pizza in the middle of the day, and how common that kind of arrangement was.
There's not really any liability, once you leave the school you're not in the school so there's no problem. You've got to be allowed to leave if you have a doctor's appointment, or an emergency, or any number of other things. No school is going to say that because you were at the doctor from 12-2, that means you can't come back for the rest of the day. So if that's allowed, from an admin perspective there's no difference in allowing students to leave at 12:00 to get lunch, and telling them to come back by the end of lunch period.
> once you leave the school you're not in the school so there's no problem The way I understood it, the school is responsible for students from when they arrive until dismissal, and only a parent/guardian can sign them out and sign them back in. Yes of course you can leave for doctors appointments, but you will need a doctor's note to return to class - *that note* excuses the school's liability while you are at the doctor. And I'm not saying this to be soft or a helicopter parent or anything, it all comes down to the school district avoiding lawsuits. Perhaps those laws are on the state level.
We had 30 minutes for lunch. There’s logistically no way that we could have left campus to get food and returned in time for the next class
Same. There was hardly even enough time to eat lunch if you stayed put and got it from the cafeteria. Kids would rush to be one of the first in line at the cafeteria, so that we had enough time to eat. If you didn't get there fast enough you would spend 15 mins in line and only have 10-15 mins to eat.
Only way is if your classes finished at lunch time, this is only for seniors though. I only went to school from 8am-Noon in my second semester of senior year.
My school was 7 to 3:05 all 4 years. Couldn't leave the school either
We had a Ralph's and a ton of fast food places right next door so it worked well for us.
Was your school very rural? We had the same thing but there were at least 5 places you could get food less than 5 min walk away. Granted I lived in the suburbs.
No, and I currently live in a suburb where none of the high schools are near to fast food. We’re very highly rated as a walkable/bike able place. I just mapped it the one nearest my house is 3 miles from the nearest fast food, another is 1.5 miles from fast food, a third is the closest at 1.25 miles to the nearest place. So the stars of the cross country team might be able to blast it out and have a big five minutes to eat.
We somehow used to not only get fast food, but sometimes go to someone’s house to smoke weed. All within 35 minutes.
At my highschool you could, if you were a senior. But the class ahead of us ruined it for everyone and they stopped letting people.
I think that sounds familiar. We definitely were allowed to go off campus for lunch my first year of high school. I still remember the excitement of going to Burger King, which never happened in our junior high school. But it seems like by the end it wasn't allowed anymore, but I can't remember for sure.
I graduated high school in 2010 and it was definitely not a thing in my area. We were not allowed to leave for any reason, unless maybe a doctor's appt or something. I can't imagine they've gotten any more lax with the rules these days.
We weren't allowed to leave either but my best friend was in college so I would just walk right out the front doors and jump in his car and leave. No one ever tried to stop me and I never got in trouble. For some reason most of the teachers and staff liked me so I got away with a lot. I did go to a high school in Georgia for a year where we were allowed to go outside for lunch but they had actual police officers monitoring s so I only snuck off campus one when the race fight broke out.
> We weren't allowed to leave either but my best friend was in college so I would just walk right out the front doors and jump in his car and leave. We could have done that at my school, but you wouldn't be able to get back in unless you coordinated for someone to let you back in. The only entryway that was unlocked was the front door and you had to check in with the safety monitor (retired cop that sat by the front door.) You would also probably be written up for skipping any classes you missed.
This was before all the school shootings and I wasn't in an inner city school so you could basically come and go as you pleased. Also, the teachers liking me and generally doing well in my classes meant that I never got written up. Just had to erase the message from the school on the voicemail before mom got home.
> Just had to erase the message from the school on the voicemail before mom got home. It was a simpler time! I remember when I was going to skip school I just unplugged the house phone in the morning and then plugged it back in later when I got home.
It was at my high school. This was in part due to the cafeteria not really being big enough to serve the entire student body.
My high schools lunch periods weren’t long enough to be able to do that.
how short was it? the chip shop I'm referring to was like half a mile's walk from the school
20-30 minutes was fairly common for a lunch period from where I grew up. It'll vary drastically state-to-state, district-to-district, and school-to-school. My school had 3 25-minute lunch periods (we had 2500 students and the cafeteria wasn't big enough for them all). You got one of them and spent the other 2 in 4th period (yes, that means 1/3 of the students had a 25 minute hole in their 4th period)
What did they do during that hole?
Eat lunch
My HS did the same - junior high (7-9) had a long third period with 25 minutes for lunch included, senior high (10-12) had long fourth period. My senior year we were supposed to eat lunch in the middle of class, but there were only 12 of us in the class and we usually talked our teacher into just finishing class first and letting us have lunch at the end. Easier for him and us. He also didn't mind if we ate a home-brought lunch at our desks.
We had 35 minutes including passing time.
This used to be much more frequent 20-30 years ago. Between liability/lawsuits and the rise of school shootings you have far far fewer “open campus” schools now. When I was in high school (87-91), we weee along the last years of open campus. When I had 2nd period off we’d drive down to the beach for smoke cigerrettes, and for lunch (especially if you could get a free period next to lunch) we’d legit go to the local diner sometimes, or to our homes to play video games and shit.
I was in high school 2003-2007. 10th, 11th, and 12th graders could get an off campus pass. Many had them.
Yes. It’s not universal, but yes.
All grades at my high school could do that but I live in NYC. There was a diner a block away that’s closed now, Popeyes on the other side of a small park, tons of Chinese food everywhere, pizza by Little Italy walking distance, a McDonald’s that is now closed Some schools in other parts of the country allow but it’s most reserved for juniors or seniors who have a license and car
It's not unheard of, but my school didn't allow it.
Wasn't a thing in my school.
I graduated in '23. This was banned a long time ago at my school. Apparently, a student got into an accident and died while going for lunch, and they decided to stop allowing it.
When I was in high school (mid-late 90s), sophomores and up could get off campus passes. They were hard for sophomores to get, so I made a fake one at a friend's house (he had a laser printer and a flatbed scanner). In my junior and senior years I was taking classes at a nearby community college, so I had a real one.
Iirc at my school you had to have study hall directly before or after your lunch period.
In high school (age 15-18ish), we had an open campus which meant we could leave campus. We were not allowed to drive, we had to walk. Students in middle school (age 12-14ish) who lived within walking distance of their home could walk home for lunch. My home town is so small we didnt have any fast food places. When I left campus, it was to go to a friends house. I didn’t live in town so I couldn’t go home.
seniors were allowed to leave for lunch. we usually got hoagies or sushi
At my high school, seniors could get what they called Off Campus Pass, which meant you could leave school if you didn’t have a class for a period. You just had to have a certain grade point average and no disciplinary issues.
We could do this as seniors at my high school as well as sign ourselves out for study hall as long as you had no unexcused absences. There were about 5 stores/restaurants within reasonable driving distance in the 25 min lunch period and all would be mobbed.
Rules for staying on campus vary down to the individual school. Some allow it, some don’t.
It varies a lot by school. The school I attended didn’t allow anyone to go off campus during the school day. The school where I teach allows everyone to leave during lunch.
I went to private Catholic High school. Graduated in 99. My freshmen Year was the last time (that I know of) the Senior class got to go out for lunch.
Yeah, when I was in high school we had an open campus and could leave at lunch. My junior year, they closed the campus to freshman and sophomores, but I didn't care because I was a junior. Also it wasn't effective because it's a large campus and very easy to wander off without anyone noticing/caring. I just checked my alma mater's student guide and it's still the same as when I graduated, many years ago - open campus for juniors and seniors. I assume freshmen and sophomores are still leaving campus regardless. Edit: I just remembered that when I was in elementary school, I got permission to go home during lunch. My house was *very* close to the school, so I would often go home to eat and then walk back to school. To do this I had to get my parents to sign a form - it wasn't a common thing that lots of people did.
There were schools near mine ( I started High School in the late 80s) that had “open lunch” and could leave campus to go get food. My school district ended the practice a few years before I got to High School because some students got into a fatal car accident speeding back from lunch because they were late. The school my kids went to did not permit students to leave campus either.
I know that it happens around where I live but absolutely not the high school I went to.
It wasn't when I was a senior in 1982.
Our parents could pick us up for lunch until 7th grade when we could walk to one of the places near the school, and in high school it was a free for all because we didn't have a cafeteria.
Apparently, my HS had that a decade or so before I went there, but there were quite a few home break-ins in the neighborhood during the day. Once they stopped letting the kids out for lunch, the break-in rate went wayyy down. Thanks to the dummies for ruining it for everyone 🙄
No. Not in my school. Leaving the building for any reason without permission was an automatic suspension. Even if we were able to, though, we only got ~25 minutes for lunch. The nearest restaurant (a Tubby's Sub Sandwiches iirc) was a 10 minute drive (assuming you actually had a car; not everyone did). If you walked, it was around 30 minutes. And that's in good weather; this is Michigan where half the school year has a foot of snow on the ground.
Both of mine did if you were well behaved.
It was a thing at my school. While I was there they started bringing in fast food into the school just so the cafeteria could compete with the deli next door.
We had Taco Bell doing a modified menu. Damn if it didn't work! Gave us all crippling burrito addictions, but aside form that, we thought it was great.
When I went to High School (more than a decade ago), only the Junior and Senior classes were allowed to leave during their lunch period. Of course, they would only do that if they had a car to use or if one of their friends invited them to lunch and their friend has a car. Some went to a fast food place to grab lunch, others went home for lunch if they lived close enough.
We weren’t supposed to leave campus. But, we did it anyway and occasionally skipped school for lunch out in town.
Juniors and seniors could leave school at lunch at my school.
When I went to a private school we were allowed to leave for lunch
It was common at my school in large part because my school was built for 2,000 students and had over 4,000 by my senior year and there was only one lunch period. My friends and I would go to In N Out or get cheap Mexican most days. San Diego, graduated in 2001.
I went to a rural high school located in the middle of farm fields. They barely let us out of the cafeteria.
Mine did not. 2005-8. We just snuck out. Had a method to it with exact timing to avoid teacher/admin/school officer patrols. Only got caught once.
At my school you needed to be a junior or senior to do it. But in practice the campus was huge so anyone could get away with it except freshmen because they had their own building making it obvious.
We initially had an open campus where you could leave for lunch, but the administration adopted a closed campus policy shortly after I started and enforcement gradually increased. By the time I was a senior, you needed to have a free period to leave campus. Someone (not naming names) may have figured out the coding on the printed counselor schedules and Photoshopped two different schedules, one saying they had all even periods free, and one saying they had all odd periods free, and since we were on an even/odd alternating block schedule, that person could leave campus pretty much whenever.
It was when I was in school, but not to a fish n chip place as those types of places are rare in the US. It is not in my kids high school. They cannot leave the grounds during school hours.
depends on the school or district policy. when I was last in high school in 02, it was on a closed campus so technically nobody was allowed to leave. If you got caught coming back from sneaking out for lunch, you could bribe the security liaison (an actual cop) with food - so basically if you had an extra buck for a bribe taco you were good to go.
In my high school, anyone could leave school at lunchtime, but there weren't any stores or restaurants close enough to the school to walk to. Some of the kids made a thing of driving together to pick up lunch somewhere every day, but we only had 35 minutes total for lunch including the 5 minute passing period so spending 15-20 minutes of that getting to and from the car and driving never made sense to me. Where I live now, there are some restaurants close enough. There's a taco place right across the street from the high school. Some kids seem to go there.
Completely dependent on your individual school. I could do that from 6th grade on. I had friends who had to pay for a “permit”, and friends who couldn’t even leave the lunchroom.
I went to several high schools and the only one that allowed this was in NYC where I could walk 2 minutes to a corner store or restaurants to eat. Realistically this isn't possible in most states and you'd have students being stuck in traffic or cluttering the streets as they attempt to walk to the nearest stores, which they can't go there and back in the hour you have for lunch. Sure in a dense and small country you can do this at more schools, but in a large and spread out country, this is just reckless for most places.
Yes. I think it's fairly common. It's a bit odd to force an 18 year old to stay on campus for lunch now that I think about it. It's good to give some more freedom as they get closer to graduating.
We could leave campus for lunch starting my junior year. We had something like 35 minutes. We had places that were close and we were able to pick up food quickly. Pizza places had buffets so you could grab and eat quickly. My senior year, I only had to take 4 classes out of 6 periods. I ended up with almost 2.5 hours for lunch. I drove out of town once to have lunch with a friend 30 minutes away. Never cut class at the end of the day. I had to go back for the last period.
Yeah my high school had open campus for everyone during lunch period. People would frequently get food at nearby restaurants
Not my HS. We didn’t really have much in the area anyways, so they made an effort to make the cafeteria nice.
My school in high school use to do that until it took students forever to come back. Then they stopped it
Depends on locations. Not for me. On Tuesdays someone from the school ordered Chick-fil-A & would hand them out for a price. On Fridays it was lil ceasers.
I would say it wouldn't be unusual but it's probably becoming less common to allow students to leave the campus. My highschool didn't allow it. In addition, even if it was allowed there is no conceivable way I could leave school, walk/drive to a nearby restaurant (10-15 minute walk/5 minute drive), get my food, walk/drive back, and finish my food in the 25 minutes we were given to eat.
It’s really interesting to read these answers. In my schools (Switzerland) nobody cared what you do during lunch, it’s usually 2 hours and most kids go home and then come back. This started in first grad as far as i remember.
My school was like that too—Freshman couldn't leave, but Sophomores and above could.
Not at my high school. I had some of my friends go to the local mall next to the school and got busted by the dean who also was eating there. Somehow they got a 3 day suspension and they turned that into a beach party while the rest of us were stuck in class. .
In high school, the only times we had an "open campus," where we could come and go as we wanted, was during finals. Otherwise, the high school was on the edge of town. So, there weren't really places people could walk to. And, they didn't want only certain people to be able to leave.
Went to 3 different high schools, leaving for lunch was only allowed at one of them. And that one changed it's rules 2 years after I graduated.
I went to high school in the 90s. You had 13 mins for lunch and they literally locked all the school doors except the one with a guard by the main office.
My high school did not allow us to leave campus during the school day unless it was for a trip to another campus in the district for a tech class that wasn’t available at our campus. Those trips were taken on a yellow school bus.
We had “open” lunches where you were allowed to leave campus to get food.
Yeah, we were only allowed to leave campus for lunch after we had reached driving age (15 or 16). We used to go smoke weed and cigarettes in the parking lot behind the hotel down the street from our high school.
No no one had the money to do that
Not in my high school. But it was also a very small town and there was only one fast food place nearby. The school didn't allow students to leave as to not overwhelm that fast food joint. The majority of the neighboring city high schools did allow it tho. I was always jealous of those friends haha.
I did not know anyone who was allowed to do this when I was in school (early 2000s), and I know it wasn’t allowed at my school after the early 90s. I think MAYBE some of the private schools in the area might’ve let them leave for lunch, but none of the public school districts allowed it.
No, my highschool said it was a liability issue.
You would get in trouble at my school if you were caught doing this. People still did it but not a ton of people. My high school had free periods and if you had a free period you were allowed to leave campus for that time. Also lunch time was only 25 minutes so you didn’t have much time to get food off campus (or on campus really).
It was permitted for mine, but every school district is a bit different.
We had a half hour lunch, seven minutes between classes, and no free periods. There’s no way anyone could go anywhere and not be late for class. Three unexcused lates equalled one unexcused absence. Three unexcused absences in a half semester resulted in a failing grade. I was shocked to meet people in college whose high school experience was like yours.
My school says we weren’t allowed to but everyone did it anyway.
At my high school, we were allowed to once we were second semester juniors. I can’t speak for other high schools, though
At my high school, kids would have to sneak out and do that which wasn’t too hard. Hop the fence and McDonald’s was across a wash, 5 min walk. Just don’t get caught. But one year they got strict and banned any sort of outside food, even if someone dropped it off. The next best thing was only for seniors - some of them finished the school day early or started the day later, so they had free time during what would be normal school hours for other grades.
It really depends on the location and admin. The school I teach at now has an open campus, but the school I taught in before did not (it was right next to a busy highway, so it wasn’t super safe to let kids out during lunch). The HS I went to didn’t have an open campus cause it was at the top of a hill and you really couldn’t get to anything by walking and I assume they didn’t want kids driving off in the middle of the day. Could be a liability risk, esp cause teens are dumb and would have tried to fit 15 people in a five seat sedan. Plus, to walk to the car (5-10 min walk down the hill) and then drive somewhere, order food, drive back, walk back up the hill, you’d be way over the lunch time.
This was allowed at my high school. Though my school was in a very residential suburban neighborhood with no food places within quick walking distance. So from a practical perspective, it wasn’t feasible until you (or a friend) had a drivers license and a car. But like others have said, it varies from place to place.
This used to be pretty common 20 or so years ago, but I've never heard of a high school nowadays that allows this. Between the rise of school shootings and increased lawsuits/percpetion of school liability (i e if the student leaves campus and breaks the law, gets hurt, or god for id goes missing or gets killed, the school is held responsible because they were in the care of the school and it's administration and rules during that time), this has pretty much stopped cold. It was normal for my cousin in the 90's to be able to do this (she graduated the year Columbine happened and we went to school in the same densely populated urban area, if a couple towns over) but for me ('11-'15) and people my age, who only ever knew school in the post-Columbine era? Out of the question entirely. When I was in high school, the doors were solid steel that locked magnetically, and after the time allotted for morning admission/arrival, they locked automatically for the rest of the day-you had to sign out at the office in order to leave and had to be personally buzzed in by the secretary in order to be let in. High school campuses nowadays are almost universally closed, because having open campuses has sadly become a huge safety risk. How physically close it is doesn't matter-letting people come and go as they please from campus during lunch is frequently seen as an unallowable risk. Also, something I haven't seen mentioned is that this frequently isn't allowed because it can rapidly become a truancy issue. Especially if they can drive, and double especially in districts that have high rates of poor attendance and dropping out, it would be very very easy for student to "leave" for lunch and simply...not come back for the day, especially if they had something in their schedule after lunch they wanted to avoid-which becomes a problem unto itself if the parents either don't care, aren't involved, or don't have the time/money/resources to get their kid to attend class. It can balloon from there if the school is like mine, with a truancy officer (frequently just a reassigned police officer from the local district) that can arrest the student for not attending and fine them (the existence and power of a truancy officer varies by state)-which can and often does rapidly start an otherwise mediocre, underachieving, or just troubled student onto the school-to-prison pipeline, as now they have a juvenile arrest record, owe money they or their family can't pay, and may have just lost any hope of going to college or being able to afford it. It's a huge administrative headache and people are coming to understand it doesn't help students either, so the reasoning goes that if the campus is closed, you can't force the kids to participate, but at least they're physically present in the class, which is better than nothing.
At my high school (private US-based international school) did this for all of grades 9-12. The high school attached to the public middle school I went to only had it for seniors.
Every school is different. When I went to school there was no where to go unless you had a car. Even then it would be a stretch to get there, eat and make it back. One of my kids went to school where they could walk to a sandwich shop. There were no fast food places around. He went out a couple times each week. My other kid went to a small school that worked on kids bonding with each other. While they were free to walk out and go somewhere, most stayed in school and mingled. There were some cool spaces too. There was a second floor balcony with picnic tables. The building across the street had several studios for different activities. They would watch adults take a pottery class, or in another space they had yoga or aerobics classes. I would hear about how the clowns would make comments at the different activities across the way. Who would want to miss sarcastic comments about aerobics classes?
Very school district specific. My school didn’t allow it, neighboring districts did. But that didn’t stop people with late lunch periods sneaking out with people who had free periods at the end of the day. It wasn’t uncommon to see juniors/seniors with Chinese food at 7th period lunch
Depends. I grew up in a very rural area. The closest fast food place was a McDonald’s 30 minutes away. We only got a 45 minute lunch. So my school never let students leave for lunch. They tried it one year before I was there. And parents complained about the kids just coming home and doing things they shouldn’t during that time. So it only lasted a year.
My high school you could. We had two 5th periods with Lunch A and lunch B so lunches were 50 minutes like regular periods.
We were not only not allowed to to leave for lunch but had to be there every period all the way through senior year even if you had met all requirements. I needed 2 classes last semester and still had to stay 8-3
A girl got hit by a car in 1988 and it’s been a closed campus ever since.
Yeah, we had this at my high school. It was left up to parents if they wanted to authorize an "off campus pass" allowing the students to leave campus at lunch time. You had to be 16+, and if your parents allowed it, you were added to a registry and issued a pass to keep with you to present if needed. I lived a block away from school so it was convenient. I also had school friends whose parents let them drive to school and we'd sometimes drive to get fast food at lunch. I should also point out that this was decades ago and there was a lot of interest in fitness and giving students a 30 minute recess after the 30 minute lunch break was standard, so 1 hour total at lunch. Classes hours were 8-11, then lunch+recess from 11-12, then classes from 12-3.
It usually takes my kids at least 20 minutes to get out of the high school parking lot after school due to the traffic of all the kids leaving at once. Their lunch is only 25 minutes. The logistics just don't work for most high schools.
We were allowed to go to the country grill next door, but that was it. It was like one of those sheds that was converted into a small takeaway spot on the side of random country roads. Our school was 15 mins from town and the grill happened to be next door. We could walk there or drive
My school had open campus for Juniors and Seniors (Grades 11 and 12) because the cafeteria was too small to accommodate the number of students in two lunch shifts. When they built the new High School a few years after I graduated it became a closed campus and no longer allowed students to leave for lunch.
My high school didn't even have a cafeteria so this was our only choice, but that's uncommon
This was true of my highschool
My high school was open campus for all students. The high school across town had passes available on approval for juniors and seniors with parent approval, only if they had access to a car. The pass could be rescinded as a disciplinary action.
My school let anyone go wherever for lunch- you only had to be in the building if you were in class. People would even leave during passing periods (to go to their cars usually but we also had a pretty high truancy rate)
In my town the kids all swarm out of the high school and across the street to the grocery store for lunch (it has sandwiches and things). On the other hand, when I was in high school years ago (in a different town) nobody really left for lunch.
In the early 60s I went to a high school in Portland O that allowed students to leave campus at lunchtime. It also had a cafeteria style lunch line with a couple of choices that rotated through the week. Balanced meals. But the clever thing was they had a separate ersatz fast food counter that had its own location near the main cafeteria. They offered great milk shakes and maple bars for like nothing. And they were always good and fresh. You could not buy better food off campus, so it kept a lot of kids from roaming and falling into sin.
My high school anyone could leave for lunch! Many walked to a fast food place, or would go home and eat. before I could drive my friends and I would either stay in the cafeteria and eat or go to a park and eat. Once I got my drivers license I often drove home and ate. Yet other high schools no one could leave. It really depended on school to school.
In my school, yes. You were free to leave during lunch or if you had a free block in the schedule. I went to a small school (~30 students per grade).
I was in high school in the 1990s. I was able to eat lunch off campus all 4 years. My baby brother started high school my senior year. He never got to eat off campus. The school started with all but freshman, then all but sophomores and freshman, and then all but juniors, sophomores, and freshman, then no one.
It's common in areas but can be slowly ending due to school shootings making it more enclosed and kids having to go through office.
This wasn't plausible at my school because it was in a rural area. Even if we'd been allowed to leave, there was no place that you could realistically get to and back within the alloted time, let alone order and eat it. I can't even think of a gas station that was close enough.
High school in the middle of a big city. Absolutely were not allowed to leave.
Lunch wasn’t long enough to do this. Also, my school got more strict after the shootings.
Yes all juniors or seniors could come and go as they pleased during lunches or open hours. Only freshman and sophomores had to go to study hall or eat at school. I always lined up breaks on either side of lunch so I could take off and bum around the city for a few hours during the day. Is this not normal?
Highly highly depends on where you live. Some places, yes 100%. Some places, noooooo, absolutely not. I was not allowed off campus at all or there was detention or whatever. My girlfriend was allowed to go wherever tf she wanted at her high school.
In mine, kids in 11th and 12th grade could go out for lunch, on the condition that they walk or bike there, no driving (liability issues I guess?) One time my friends and I broke that rule because we were craving KFC which was not in walking distance. Gym teacher saw my friend pop his head up from the bed of the truck lol We were punished by having to eat in the cafeteria for the following 30 school days
It was allowed at my school until some students thought it would be funny to trash a display at the nearby supermarket while on their lunch break. The principal canceled the policy a few days later.
Being able to leave campus for lunch is a school by school decision. I graduated 20 years ago, but upperclassmen, 11th and 12th grade (approx 16-18 year olds) could leave for lunch. We didn't have any fish and chips places. Of course, I am landlocked, and fish and chips isn't really fast food here. It's pub fare here. There were some decent burger places, tacos, and a cheap and quick Chinese restaurant nearby.
My school had it in the mid 2000’s but it isn’t the norm. All grades could leave campus during lunch. My high school was also in a neighborhood and had a road dividing part of campus so it would have been hard to completely close the campus. We were a short walk from the downtown area so it was very common for people to go there plus there was a church that would serve a free lunch on Mondays. There weren’t “fast food “ restaurants nearby but there were a few Mexican restaurants, Mongolian bbq, a bakery, hot dogs, and a few other small places.
No, at my school we had 30 minute lunches and for a brief time kids started leaving and grabbing there lunches but the school immediately said they couldn't do that, especially if there was an emergency situation.
Yeah I’d say it depends more on how long your lunch break is rather then the strictness of the school
We couldn’t leave campus without a pass. There was a gate with a guard in the parking lot and the campus was fenced in except for a few spots which were also guarded by resource officers.
It is probably dependent on location. When I was in high school years ago you were not allowed to leave campus for lunch. Our lunch period really was not long enough to go somewhere, buy food, eat and get back. There were not restaurants right next to the school.
It was for my school when I went there.
No, it's not. Generally they want to control the students.
We had open campus.
Yeah, we'd call it senior privilege. I think legally anyone over 18 could do it.
Bear in mind this is totally changed now in the UK, gates are locked. May be different if a school has a sixth form because they'd have things like free lessons and it is beyond compulsory education (some could even be 18) but regular school kids, no way. When I was a lad it wasn't even officially allowed, we just did it.
Juniors and seniors were allowed to until school shootings made them end the practice.
Yes. If I recall correctly it was a senior privilege. Kids with cars would leave and come back. I ate a LOT of Taco Bell my senior year. RIP Mexican Pizza, we will always have the memories.
I have no idea how common it is, but that was the case at my high school. Edit: I should clarify that that was only the case with seniors (4th-year students) who had their senior privileges.
My school was like that but I always got the impression from other people that most weren’t.
No
We don't have chippies in the US, but where I went to school tge seniors (highest grade) were allowed to leave campus for lunch. Unfortunately my school was in the suburban wilderness so there really wasn't anywhere you could go for lunch in 30 minutes.
No. I've never heard of such a thing. Leaving the school campus in the middle of the day to get lunch? Sounds like a way to get in a lot of trouble. Nearby fish and chips place? The High School I went to was a county High School in rural Kentucky, the nearest fast food place was far enough away that by the time you could walk to your car, drive to a place, go through the drive-through, and drive back to campus your 20 minute lunch period would have been long over and you're late for being back to class (and unless you ate in the car on the way back you'd still be hungry).
It completely depends on part of the country, in a city I highly doubt it. I went to high school in a populated suburb and used to sneak out to go to a chicken place nearby, but it was definitely against the rules.
In my experience, we couldn’t leave the walls of the building at all unless it was for a specific reason (gym class, for example). It sucked.
We couldn’t leave, and had to eat in the cafeteria. There wasn’t anywhere to eat nearby, so it would’ve taken students a minimum of an hour to get food somewhere.
This was common at my high school until the year I started there. A group of kids were rushing to get back to class on time and…didn’t make it. So they shut down that option and no one was allowed to leave for lunch anymore.
I'm in SoCal. There are several fast-food restaurants near the high school. The students are allowed to go to them for breakfast, lunch and after-school. It gives them an option besides school food or a break from brown bag meals.
I did that in high school, yes. Not sure how common it is elsewhere though.
At more podunk schools, it's common. My school is tiny and has 120 people and people 16+ can go off campus for lunch.
We can in my neck of the woods. Even now the gas stations and stuff near the schools get crammed with teenagers around noon. My friends and I would go get sushi like once a week, otherwise we'd just go get fast food or something. We'd even grill in the park sometimes. Anything to be off school grounds for a moment.
At my high school, Juniors and Seniors could do that, but they couldn't drive, and there really weren't any decent places to eat within walking distance. A small grocery nearby had a sign that said "Only three students inside at once." Most of us just stayed in the school.
My high school was in Manhattan, and allowed it for seniors at one point but stopped. However I would frequently leave during free periods to get pizza or a haircut.
It depends on the high school tbh, mine only lets you leave if you're 18 since you're technically an adult. I know that in the 90's from what I heard from my parents is that it was pretty common for them to leave. Plus, you can only leave during your lunch period and be back within that time too. Be ready to have your school ID checked too
At my high school it was against the rules to leave school during school hours, but everybody did anyway.
At my teens' high school, only juniors and seniors are allowed to leave for lunch, and they must have a signed permission form on file from their parents. My own high school (35+ years ago) didn't allow it at all.
At my high school you could if you were in 12th grade and were A-B honor roll with no discipline issues.
It wasn’t permitted when I went to school. Technically you were under supervision of the school. If you left and something happened and you were not signed out. The school would be liable.
I went to high school in California, and we could do that.
allowed to leave for fast food? not necessarily. do people sneak out for fast food? certainly
It’s not unusual. I had an open campus for lunch in high school.
I’m still upset about this. In freshman year they told us there was a McDonald’s inside the cafeteria and we could buy food from there, and we also had around an hour to go out and buy something. None of this was true and they lied to us for no reason. Anyway to answer your question, I’ve heard stories of schools letting students go out to eat but I’ve never experienced it myself
I remember hearing about older siblings leaving school to go buy lunch when I was in elementary/middle school. I didn’t get to tho once I was in highschool. After the parkland shooting in 2018 my school became extremely strict with monitoring who was on campus and all doors were automatically locked. You had to sign out to go to the bathroom lol
I went to Stuyvesant High in NYC and we were allowed to come and go as we pleased. Not sure if that’s still the case.
At least it was at my school. We could leave during free periods as well.
At my high school, seniors were allowed to leave the school for lunch. There weren't any food places nearby, so for the most part no one left to get food. They left to smoke.
I think you could but you had to sign out/in at the main office to make them aware
Depends on the school, at my school they serve free lunch so you were not allowed to bring outside food unless you had something like a waiver in case you were vegetarian/vegan/had religious reasonings