As students return to “normal” school for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, VHHS is implementing a new open campus lunch policy. This policy allows all students to check out of the building during their lunch period, a privilege that has previously only been offered to seniors.

“It doesn’t make me mad, but I feel like you wait till your senior year to be able to go out, but I understand because of COVID that everybody should be able to leave if they want,” CJ Leuck (12) said.

Not everybody at VHHS has the option to take advantage of this opportunity, though. Some younger students are finding that the open campus policy doesn’t affect them as m1uch as it affects some of the upperclassmen.

“If I had a vehicle or anything to take me around to go, [the open campus policy] would be useful. But to me right now, it’s not really useful because I’m a sophomore; I don’t have a driver’s license,” Paarth Keswani (10) said.

Students who don’t have a full lunch period in their schedules are also finding that they can’t go off campus for lunch. This school year, junior Vivan Vaswani is taking an AP Physics 1 class, a period and a half class which leaves him with only half a lunch period.

“If I was able to utilize the full period, I would probably go out, go home, or maybe go to a restaurant and get some food with my friends,” Vaswani said.

Many students do, in fact, view going out to eat and going home as prime reasons to leave if they are able. Leuck said that her favorite restaurants to go to during her lunch period are Chick-fil-A and Chipotle, since she loves the food and they are both close to the school.

Even though getting fast food is a big plus, that’s not the only reason why she leaves campus during her lunch hour.

“I like the change of environment,” Leuck said.

Also according to Leuck, getting to leave campus gives students an opportunity to clear their minds and collect themselves in order to concentrate for the rest of the day. Even students who don’t actually get to leave campus believe that the policy is for the greater good.

“I think that [the open campus policy is] a great addition to the lunch period. And I feel like it will benefit most students,” shared Vaswani.

Evan Kim and Jadyn Schwartz contributed to this report.