At Winston Churchill High School, the media center is supposed to be a space where students can focus, study and get their work done. However, a rule that bans having food and drinks while in the media center makes it a lot harder for students to actually use it as they need to. There is no real reason for this policy to exist when students are already trusted to eat in classrooms, hallways and other parts of the school. If the school wants the media center to be a useful space, students should be allowed to bring in food and drinks.
One of the biggest problems with the rule is that it forces students to choose between eating and being productive. A lot of students, especially juniors and seniors, with packed schedules, rely on lunch periods or their personal free time to get work done. The media center is one of the best places for that to take place—it is quiet, has computers and has enough space for many students to spread out and study. But, if students are not allowed to eat there, they either have to go somewhere else or study for hours without food just to get their work done. It also makes no sense to force students to choose when both things could easily happen at the same time.
Another issue is that the rule assumes students cannot be trusted to clean up after themselves. Having food and drinks is already allowed in a lot of school classrooms, and those spaces do not turn into disasters as students understand that if they make a mess, they need to clean it up. The media center could implement simple rules to accommodate eating habits. For example, they could prohibit students from bringing in foods that are super messy to consume and set stricter guidelines to make sure trash goes in the bins instead of completely banning something that is not actually a problem by itself.
If the goal of the media center is to be a space where students can work and be productive, then this rule is doing the exact opposite. A lot of students do not even bother going there because they know they will just have to leave if they get hungry or need a drink. Instead of making the media center an unwelcoming space, the school should be doing the opposite—encouraging students to use it as much as possible.
The solution is simple: let students eat and drink in the media center, just like they do in the school classrooms. If there is a concern about making a mess, there can be specific rules pertaining to that implemented to prevent it from occurring. However, completely banning food and drinks in the media center makes it harder for students to use the media center in the way it was meant to be used. It is time to change this rule and make the media center the place it was intended to be for students.
