Friday, August 31, 2007

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.

6 comments:

sgh said...

Wow, that's an incredible story. Isn't that penalizing you for being a student? Do those who drop out of high school get ticketed for being off campus?

Also, school lunches are gross.

Charlotte Mills said...

That's really weird. At my high school our seniors and juniors were allowed to go off campus. I've never heard that Texas law though. Interesting. But those consequences were pretty crazy.

lh1282 said...

I completely understand where you're coming from. My highschool was the same way. Although no one ever got fined, the school was a closed campus so we were forced to eat school food. Luckily, we had an AMAZING school store where you could buy almost anything so it kind of balanced out. But who wouldnt want to leave campus to eat especially if you're forced to eat that nasty food? But i love your description of the school food! You made it sound extra gross. GOOD JOB!

Brandy said...

At our high school all students were allowed to go off campus for lunch. I've never really heard of schools that only let the seniors leave campus. If that would have been the case in our school, im sure a lot of people would have done the same as you did.

*Felicia* said...

That's how my school is too! Me and my friends left almost all the time and only got caught once. But the consequece wasn't that bad.Just a Saturday d-hall. That's crazy.

Lynn A. Hardin said...

Well, at least you proved your point. So, your senior year you were allowed to go off campus, right ?

It does sound quite unfair that they only gave that right to the upperclassmen. High school always reminded me of a prison, without bars. Glad to know that you stood up for your beliefs. You showed those Nazis what your made of. Haha.