Healthy High School

At Austin High School there is a policy about off campus lunches; only seniors are allowed to leave the school for lunch. However, according to the state of Texas, the legal age is 17 to be able to go off campus. Some of the food offered in the cafeteria includes greasy pizza, fat-filled fries, artery-clogging cheeseburgers and diabetic calzones. Despite these offerings they took all soda and chocolate products out of the vending machines to “make us healthier” and added a new ice cream vending machine. Brand name food restaurants were not allowed on the property to compete with the nasty, greasy food from the cafeteria. Otherwise, they wouldn’t make as much money. This lead many underclassmen to go off campus for lunch, including myself. I went off campus for lunch most of my freshman year because I was dating a senior at the time. My mother knew I was going off campus and understood the food I was going off campus for like Thunderclouds was better for me. As long as I still got back for my next class on time she didn’t have any problems with it. In the first week of my sophomore year however, I was given a day time curfew ticket by a high school cop while I was off campus. Needless to say my parents were not thrilled. My court date was set for about 3 months later. I was put on probation for six months and had to pay a $250 fine. I was not the only one given a ticket. Overall, there were about 150 other students at court that evening all for the same offence. I continued going off campus just on principal. I told everyone that the requirement under the law was being 17, not being a senior. This was one of many reasons why I did not like high school and its stupid bureaucracy.