One of the greatest things that ever happened to Millbrook was SMART lunch. It stands for Students Maximizing Achievement Relationships and Time and was a program offered every Monday for students to complete makeup work, receive tutoring help, and explore other academic interests. Students were also able to participate in intramural sports in our small gym without worrying about their interests conflicting with other after school activities or lack of transportation. In addition, students were able to socialize with their friends.

SMART lunch was only offered on Mondays due to our 8-period day schedule that we used at the time. This system allowed students to eat with all of their friends once a week unlike our current lunch schedule. However, since students only had this luxury one day a week, it was not utilized as it needed to be in order to justify keeping it. Due to the lunch period being an hour long only once a week, most people would skip their tutoring in their needed class to go hang out with friends. Therefore, SMART lunch was taken away due to the improper usage.

When we came back to school for the 2015-2016 school year, we learned that SMART lunch had been replaced by a new thing called Flex which was supposed to be our solution. Yet, the Flex schedule is worse than SMART lunch ever was.

Flex has been at Millbrook for the past two years as a program to enhance our academics and give remediation during the school day. Flex time is not used properly for the most part. During flex, some teachers either keep teaching or give you free time to work on other things. However, SMART lunch gave students the opportunity to seek help from teachers that they actually needed help from, unlike Flex that forces students to spend extra time in a class where no remediation is necessary.

If the school would implement SMART lunch everyday rather than one day a week, students would be more inclined to go to tutoring instead of just heading straight to lunch. This would solve the problem of students not using the provided time for the right reasons. Flex has many more downsides than SMART lunch, and although it could potentially be improved by a revised plan, SMART lunch will always be ideal to those of us at Millbrook that were able to experience it.

Other high schools have lost their SMART lunch privileges, but were able to get them back, such as Wakefield. They got SMART lunch taken away earlier this year due to unruly behavior during the lunch period and improper usage of time. By signing petitions and peaceful protesting, their high school was able to get SMART lunch back and properly use it. SMART lunch at Panther Creek High School was even credited by Raleigh Public Record for having higher graduation rates because of their lunch program. Their success was because of their stricter policies regarding lunch and students taking advantage of the help they were receiving. With stricter rules, they were able to maintain SMART lunch, and we could do this too. For those that use it properly, it is extremely beneficial to help students achieve academic greatness. Junior Katie Moss said, “I believe SMART lunch is the best option for our school because the long lunch provided students with a fun lunch and remediation time.” If Millbrook were to give SMART lunch another chance, we could all benefit. A stress free time in the middle of the day and extra help in classes is definitely  needed. SMART lunch offers both.