BREA : High School to End Off-Campus Lunches

It’s been a tradition for as long as anyone at Brea-Olinda High School can remember: juniors and seniors being allowed to leave the campus during their lunch break.

And many students have eagerly used that privilege, bypassing the school’s cafeteria for the lure of nearby fast-food restaurants such as Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Burger King.

But today, the last day of classes until the fall, the tradition is ending. School district officials, desperate to raise money for their 1992-1993 fiscal-year budget and worried about student safety, will no longer allow students to go off campus for their 35-minute lunch breaks when classes resume in September.

No one is angrier about the change in policy than the current junior class.

“Sometimes you just want to leave school and relax with friends,” said junior Amy St. Clair, Associated Student Body president for 1992-93. “I just think it is fun to go off campus.”

District officials hope that more students will purchase food in the school’s cafeteria, adding an estimated $10,000 to the 1992-93 budget.

School board members say that even more important than money is the issue of student safety. Board members say that the students race down the hill that leads off the campus onto Lambert Road in cars going well past the speed limit, often riding unguarded on the backs of pickup trucks.

When asked by angry students why safety has just now become an issue, board members point to last month’s death of James Wilson, 16, a student at La Mirada High School. Wilson was a passenger in a car driven by a fellow student on lunch break when the driver swerved to avoid a collision, throwing Wilson from the car.

“It is a safety issue,” said board member Susie D. Sokol, who said she observed traffic leaving the school last week for lunch and saw several instances of unsafe driving.

But students talk about a privilege being taken away from them, one that allows them to escape what they say are long lines and mediocre food in the cafeteria. And they point out that it isn’t an absolute right: If their parents refuse to give them permission to leave the campus, school officials will not give them a lunch pass.

About 75 students turned out for a Brea-Olinda Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting Monday night, hoping to get the board members to change their minds.

Jeff Dixon, who will be a senior in the fall and who acted as unofficial spokesman for the group, said the students would police themselves if safety was an issue, denying the right to leave campus to anyone who gets a moving violation.

“We can tell the school board is unhappy with the way we’re driving,” Dixon said. “Give us a trial. Just the month of September. I know it will be good and there will be no tickets. Then, we’ll go step by step, month by month.”

But board members questioned the effectiveness of a self-policing plan, noting that in past years, students have promised better behavior but little change was seen.

“This is the third year in a row we’ve had this discussion,” said board member Bernie P. Kilcoyne. “We hear the same arguments over and over by another class, but we have not yet seen an improvement.”

Despite misgivings over the wisdom of continuing to have an open campus, board members did agree to form a committee with students to examine the issue over the summer to determine whether a compromise can be worked out.