By Dana Williams
“At this meeting, the board will listen to what students, parents and community members have to say,” said Superintendent John Hogan. “The school board has been looking at this policy all year, and this meeting is really about hearing the concerns that members of this district have.”
The open lunch privilege — which allows students to leave the campus in a car or on foot during their lunch period — has recently been criticized by community members and local politicians after two WHHS seniors were killed and one was critically injured in a car accident in West Hempstead on April 10. As 17-year-old Herbert Martinez was driving from the campus to get lunch that day, he crashed into a utility pole and dumpster on Nassau Boulevard. His passengers, Senior Quinntin McDonald and Saul Hernandez Lopez, both 17, died later of their injuries, and Martinez is still recovering, according to school officials.
Since the accident, school administrators have suspended WHHS’s open campus policy. “Students are not allowed to leave campus, so they have been eating lunch in the cafeteria,” Hogan explained, adding that problems such as overcrowding in the cafeteria and hallways have not been an issue at the school. “On days when the weather is nice, the students are also permitted to eat their lunch just outside the cafeteria in the school’s courtyard.”
Some school district residents support a variation on the open campus policy that would allow students to leave for lunch, but not in vehicles. Considering the limited amount of time allotted for lunch and teenagers’ inexperience behind the wheel, critics of the current open campus policy maintain, ending it would eliminate several risk factors.
“This open campus has been an ongoing debate in high schools across Long Island,” said Wendy Tepfer, the director of the Community Parent Center, a not-for-profit organization based in Merrick that provides information on parenting and family wellness through workshops, programs and other initiatives. “Students are dealing with a very limited time period, and what you have is inexperienced drivers who are trying to get out, get their lunch, eat and rush back to the school. Banning students from driving is not the answer to this teen driving problem, but it’s taking one of the risk factors away.”
After the accident in April, state Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) renewed his call for a bill that would ban school districts statewide from permitting students to leave for lunch in their cars during school hours. Gianaris introduced the bill in January, after three teens were killed in a similar accident in Smithtown. “We know that open campus policies put our students at greater risk,” Gianaris said in a statement. “The time has come to ban this dangerous policy once and for all.”
Many supporters of an open campus policy believe that it teaches students to be responsible while giving them a taste of the freedom that they will experience every day as college students — but that only seniors should be allowed to leave school grounds. “I’m not totally against students leaving campus during their lunch breaks, but I think it should be a senior privilege,” said West Hempstead resident Laura Gazzara, who has a ninth-grader at WHHS. “I think this policy is something that should be reviewed by our administration, and it’s really something that students have to earn through privilege.”
If the policy were banned at WHHS, Hogan said, no students would be allowed to leave the campus for lunch. “The school board wants as much feedback as it can get about the open campus policy,” Hogan said. “This meeting is important because it will give the school board a chance to hear what people have to say before it makes a final decision.”
The meeting will be held in the West Hempstead Middle School cafeteria from 8 to 10 p.m. “All of the board members are going to keep an open mind going into this meeting,” said James Mariano, a school board trustee. “Our students and parents have really been receptive and great with the changes that have been made at the high school since the tragedy, and the board is really coming to this meeting to listen to what they have to say.”
Comments about this story? DWilliams@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 205.
