For quite some time students at Oxnard High School have wondered why we aren’t allowed to have an open campus for lunch. Students have been blaming the staff for not allowing us to go off campus for lunch but surprisingly our staff is very willing to allow students to have that opportunity. Unfortunately it is not up to our staff it is up to the School Board.

Mr.Urias, OHS’ principal, was very on board with the idea of letting students leave campus however he doesn’t have the authority to make that decision, “even if I wanted to allow students to leave campus I wouldn’t be able to do it because my bosses wouldn’t allow it”said Mr.Urias.

With allowing students to go and get lunch outside of school there is complications that make it harder for the OHS student’s to have an open campus. One of those problems will be that there is no food near the school that is walking distance for the students, meaning cars will have to be driven to get food. Mr. Urias added that he fears the idea of students driving for lunch because of the problems that could occur.

As someone who has experienced an open campus school in our district it is not difficult to make it happen. I attended Pacifica High School my freshman year and going off campus for lunch was not a big deal. When you arrived back from lunch you simply wrote your name down on a list they had in the front gate. Yes PHS had food places that were walking distance from the school but many drove down the street to get food from another shopping center.

School lunch being provided and the school not wanting to compete with outside food is also another reason why the board sees open campus as not a good idea. As OHS senior Natalie Dickinson said “the lunch lines are packed and you waste your whole lunch just to get food.”  Mr Urias also added that he feels like another problem that will come up is the students who do not have a car to get to lunch will not be able to enjoy open campus. “If we had places kids could walk to that would be great.” There are many solutions to this problem OHS senior Sydney Luis said “we can carpool use lyft or uber.”

Instead of throwing the idea of having an open campus to the side when it gets brought up one                                                                                                                                                        should really start considering making it happen, at least for seniors. Students should have more options to eat than just the cafeteria food.