Isn’t it frustrating when you have to fall in line in front of your favorite restaurant or fast-food chain on a crowded weekend only to find out that the time you spend in queue is even longer than the time you’ll spend dining in?!
The same is felt by kids in school nowadays, who prefer ordering their recess via food delivery platforms instead of falling in line at the cafeteria, unable to enjoy their food before classes begin again. However, teachers and school officials are dismayed. Ridesharing Forum has more.
Students prefer ordering recess via Uber Eats
In a recent report on Parents.com, it has been revealed that kids are using food delivery apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash to order their school lunches nowadays, but teachers and school faculty are dismayed.
“Bored of the often repetitive options that schools offer students, many of them feel as though ordering food provides them with higher quality meals that actually excite them,” wrote Annabelle Canela, a correspondent on Parents. “Teachers, on the other hand, feel like students should continue to eat school lunch for several reasons.”
A teacher took to TikTok to express their grievances and disagreements about the rising trend of food deliveries in schools.
@thatblindmathteacher on TikTok stated how students would pretend to go to the bathroom or get water from the water dispenser, then return with a paper bag of Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and more.
“We didn’t work this hard to get kids free lunch, for them to order food during the middle of class,” the TikToker stated. “[This] does not need to happen.”
Also, school administrators believe ordering is a “major distraction” since it causes students to disappear from the classroom for around 30 minutes just to attend to their orders instead of listening to the lesson.
School faculty are concerned ordering food also poses a safety risk to students by allowing strangers – the delivery riders – to enter the school. The safety risk is even worse when drivers hand the orders at a side entrance, rather than through the main lobby, an area not reached by CCTV cameras.
Aside from safety, teachers – the kids’ second parents – are concerned about the nutritional value of the food kids are ordering since school lunches made at the cafeteria go through nutritional checks and are prepared by those concerned of the students’ nutrition.
Prohibitions
Because of those, some schools have banned students from ordering food via apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash, not allowing them to bring their phones to school.
Some schools have enforced measures not to let delivery riders in with their motorcycle as they enter the school grounds. Other schools have even become inappropriately stringent by confiscating the food – such as a McDonald’s meal – that the student ordered. The students paid for those, right?
Students find the benefits of ordering their recess via apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash.
“At my school we have an outer foyer and the delivery people are buzzed into that area, and they have to leave our food on the table,” stated one student TikToker. "They can’t come in.”
In other words, she is saying that they are still safe even if delivery riders enter the premises.
What do you think about this news? Is it an overreaction or not? Share your thoughts with the Ridesharing Forum team today.