The Banner Lunch System
January 3, 2022
As we came back to school, entering the second trimester, we came back to a new kind of lunch: the banner lunch system. Seniors and Juniors of Blackfoot High School (BHS) have had the banner lunch before, but it was replaced two years ago with the system where an individual could receive an hour lunch if they had good grades in their classes as well as good attendance.
The banner lunch system consists of three different colored “banners”, these colors being green, yellow, and red. It should be easily inferred that green is good, red is bad, and yellow is a medium between the two; much like a stop light. In order for the BHS student body to receive an hour lunch on Wednesday and Thursday each week, they must remain on a green banner. If the school is on a yellow or red banner, nobody will receive an hour lunch that week. To know what color the school is on you can listen to the morning announcements and/or look outside of the main office and they typically have the banner color hanging outside. We, the BroncWriter are also posting the daily banners both on our website as well as our instagram.
Now, how do you get and remain on a green banner? In order to keep an hour lunch and remain on a green banner, the school cannot have an incident of wrong behavior. We’ve had a problem lately within the school of people stealing things from the bathrooms for a TikTok trend. It is rumored that these actions may be a factor into the decision of putting the banner system back into place within our school. Other things that can put the student body on a yellow or red banner would be, fighting/bullying or something such as littering.
The main concern within the BHS student body in regards to the banner lunch system is that they feel it is unfair. All of the students who were asked said that they will do whatever they can to stay on a green banner, but even though they are trying it does not mean that everyone else in the student body is going to, making their good actions futile.
Not only are the students of BHS affected by this new banner lunch system, so too is the staff. This year and last we have also had a new system for lunch where we have A and B lunches. Freshman and Juniors go to lunch when the Sophomores and Seniors are in advisory and vice versa. Due to this system, teachers’ lunches may already consist of students in their classroom for both lunches, leaving the teacher with no time to themselves. Some teachers like to prep in their lunch period, some like to run an errand for a minute, but a teacher is not allowed to leave their classroom if they have a student inside. You may think that a teacher can just do these things during their actual prep period, but there are some teachers here at BHS who do not have a prep period and their lunch may be their only bathroom time as well.
Although there are plenty of cons about the banner lunch system, there are also quite a few pros. The banner lunch system can be a useful method for getting the student body to act accordingly and get them to stop doing things that are harmful to our school. This system brings the students together instead of keeping them separate as individuals and forces them to work as a school in order to obtain the things that they want. In turn, this system also keeps our school in a decent state: less littering, less fights, and less vandalism.
We have already had some time on the banner system this year and there were two incidents in particular that upset the student body. Both incidents involved people stealing from the locker room, the student body came together to help figure out who did it. Even though the students were able to figure out who brought them off of a green banner, there are still times that the student body is not going to be able to do this.
The banner lunch system does have its pros but it also has its cons, which begs the question: which is greater, the pros or the cons?
Alexis Bird • Feb 14, 2022 at 9:06 am
The banner system is both fair and unfair. It is fair in the way that your actions result in consequences. It is unfair in the way that everyone is punished for one persons actions. Why is it fair that one single person can take away something from 1,000+ other individuals? I understand how the banner system is good. We have had a few problems but instantly everyone found out who did it. But what if we don’t find out, it is then unfair. I understand how this could be very hard to solve, but if there was a possibility to make it where not everyone loses lunch because of others actions then most students would be happy. I think that we should all come up with ways for peoples actions to have fair consequences towards all students.
Devin Lindsay • Jan 19, 2022 at 1:40 pm
Very in depth. Very nice indeed.
Jess Moser • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:14 am
I think that the banner system has its pros and cons. When shoes were stollen from the locker room the culprit was found in time for all of us to have hour lunch. It was pretty sweet to have our hour lunch back, but there are too many instances where good students are punished for the wrong doings of others. I’m willing to bet that over 90% of kids that have put us on yellow or red banner don’t have good enough grades to have hour lunch anyway. The system gives them an opportunity to drag everyone under with them, making it unfair for those of us that take care of the school and get our work done.
If I’m not mistaken, the reason we are currently on yellow banner and have lost our hour lunch is because students were found smoking weed in the bathroom. There was absolutely no contribution to that by me or any of my friends, yet we have been punished like we were the ones that did the act.
I understand the frustration of the school faculty trying to keep the school nice, but nearly all of the students are in the same boat. I honestly don’t have any better ideas… except that maybe some of the kids should be locked up for a day or two to keep others from being dumb.
Hope we get an hour lunch tomorrow.
Anonymous • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:08 am
I like that this article shows an unbiased prospective showing student views as well.
Ella • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:07 am
I think the banner system is unfair because people are being punished for things that they didn’t do
Cruz • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:04 am
Although I think the banner system has it’s merits, I think overall it’s hurting more than helping. Personally, and I think anyone else could agree after a little looking, the kind of people who would vandalize and steal from schools for popularity and to be funny aren’t the kind of people who are going to care if they miss their lunch. Plus a lot of the time the things that we get yellow banner for isn’t reversible immediately, so the whole student body as a whole is kinda screwed over just because of the actions of a few or sometimes just one person.
Alonso • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:04 am
The banner system is not ok because it punishes all of us more then the person who did it.
Jeb Adams • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:03 am
I agree that the banner system can be good with keeping students in check, but I also think that it is a little unfair. Since only one kid has to do something wrong for everyone to not have hour lunch it leads to anger in most students. I think that the students that do something wrong should be punished but I just don’t like that everyone gets punished.
Quincy • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:02 am
I think the banner system is unfair. Those who keep good grades and work hard shouldn’t be punished for other people’s actions.
Cooper • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:01 am
The banner system should be banned. We shouldn’t all have to miss lunch because of a few people.
Spencer Johnson • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:00 am
I like how the banner system can somewhat keep our school out of trouble but for the ones that choose to ruin it for others by vandalism or other actions that then punish other students for actions they had nothing to do with, so I say we abolish the banner system.
Brody Mecham • Jan 19, 2022 at 9:00 am
The banner system punishes those who have done nothing wrong and doesn’t effect the perpetrators. Those who commit these acts of vandalism very rarely have hour lunch in the first place and just punish innocent students. It is a ineffective system and we should return to the previous way we did things.