Students at Lindbergh High School are making new adjustments during Power Lunch this year, specifically with the library’s new rules. Ms. Whitehead, a librarian at Lindbergh, explained some of the new rules.
“We used to just call this, actually, where we’re sitting right now, the silent section, but now the whole library is silent during [lunch],” said Whitehead.
During last year’s Power Lunch, students were allowed to come into the library to eat lunch, hang out with friends, and talk. Students were also given the freedom to work on group projects or sit quietly and do assignments. However, all that has changed. While the library is still open during Power Lunch, the school has implemented a new set of rules regarding what students are allowed to do in the library during lunch. Ms. Whitehead believes that this has helped students find a much-needed space that wasn’t available before.
“Our students who are looking for a quieter place to be during Power Lunch, where it’s a little bit more of a port in the storm instead of part of the storm. So I think that’s kind of the purpose that it’s trying to serve. And sometimes, like people do, just like need to study real quick for a test they have later,” Whitehead said.
These new rules have made a considerable impact on LHS in comparison to previous years. In the library, students are unable to work on group projects; only individual work is allowed, and it is completed in silence. Students are still allowed to eat lunch in the library, print and check out books, but they are unable to talk, enter the library on the second floor or sit at the same table as someone else. Contrary to past years, the library is not as lenient as it once was. Ms. Whitehead felt that students were already seeing the benefits of these new regulations.
“I think it was needed. Power Lunch can be quite noisy, I think there is a certain population of students looking for a quieter place at lunch,” said Whitehead.
The library has, in fact, become more manageable during lunch; however, some students have different feelings concerning the new adjustments. Leila Thomas, a student at Lindbergh, thinks that the old rules were more beneficial to students than the new ones.
“I don’t like the new rules because it was a nice space to work on homework together with friends or projects, and it was really nice to have those separated sections of the library where one half was quiet individual work and the other side was group work,” said Thomas.
Due to the new changes, students have been using the library to work instead of hanging out with friends. Despite mixed reactions to the library’s new rules, the librarians have made it clear they plan on keeping these rules in place for as long as they can to keep students productive.
Mrs. Whitehead believes it has been working better than it was before.
“I think kids are overall more productive than they have been in past years,” she said.
