As students, it is unfair to enforce assigned seating at lunch. Firstly, administration states that it is implemented to have covid contact tracing. However, students see each other at numerous other times of the day besides classes and lunch, including: in the hallways between classes, purchasing food at lunch, and in offices. Secondly, it is stated that another reasoning behind assigned seating is because they are possibly lifting the mask mandate. As stated previously, there are other times we would need to be contact traced. However, additional to that, the lifting of the mask mandate has no set date for when it will be implemented, and at the earliest it will be January 17th, 2022. Therefore, assigned seating should especially not be implemented until then.

Overall, we believe that assigned seating may not be the most effective way. Additionally, it can cause social burden on students who are not sitting with people they get along with. Therefore, if assigned seating is necessary, students should be able to choose their seats, but be mandated to remain there throughout lunch.

By: Students at MAMS