sivaaniiarunachalam

fall 2016 j1 student

On Aug 29, 2016, a school in Kansas introduced a new system of eating lunch. The plan was to give students an hour in the middle of the day to eat lunch, get help from teachers or do whatever else they wanted as long as the didn’t leave school property.

Blue Valley has received mixed emotions about this new plan called Tiger Paws. Students enjoy this time, but nonetheless have found flaws within this system.

Junior Shakti Arunachalam said he has found that the seating arrangements are flawed.

“I really dislike the seating arrangement during Tiger Paws right now. I think it’s flawed. There’s literally just people eating food everywhere, all over the hallways. People [are] just sitting on the floor, wherever you look,” he said.

Freshman Eleanor Dobbles said it’s hard to sit on the floor and eat.

I think that it is a little hard because sitting on the ground isn’t as comfortable as sitting on a table. It’s [eating’s] just messier in general,” she said.

Another thing students have found is that some students don’t have time to eat with all the clubs meeting during Tiger Paws.

“I have a friend who was involved in a lot of clubs and she had meetings all throughout Tiger Paws this one day,” Dobbles said. “I asked her ‘when are you going to eat?’, and she hadn’t really figured that part out yet because she had so many clubs.”

Arunachalam said some students have trouble finding time to eat.

“There’s lots of kids who aren’t eating, not out of their own will, but out of the simple fact that there is no time to eat [because of all the club meetings],” he said. How to solve this problem? Dobbles said she suggests that clubs schedule different days to have meetings so kids who are very involved aren’t swamped with club meetings.

There are advantages to Tiger Paws as well.

“Having extra time to talk to people while sitting on the floor,” is the only thing Arunachalam likes about Tiger Paws.

Dobbles said she enjoys having time to socialize with friends who she doesn’t have in a lot of classes.

An issue that both differ on is the situation with students coming in for help.

Arunachalam says, “if you need help and you want to be successful in school but you need academic assistance to do so, then you should be willing to make time before school or after school. There’s no reason that you don’t have time to come in before school and after school.”

Dobbles has a different point of view.

“Being a student who is involved in a lot of after school activities, I feel like it would be very hard to always be able to get the help that you need after school because you have other commitments.”