WJ students taking over Wildwood shopping center at lunch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS says it’s nearly impossible to get lunch at school. The cafeteria at school is full and there is no sitting room. Let the poor kids eat lunch!

Do they have one lunch period for the whole school? Why not do 2 or 4 lunch periods?

You want kids to have lunch at 9:30am, or 1:30pm? Do you know what time HS starts? This isn't ES where they have snack breaks.

It would also make class scheduling impossible because so many classes have kids from multiple grade levels plus all the school clubs meet at lunch and all the teachers use lunch for office hours and make up tests. If kids had different lunches, there would be no clubs and no way to do make up tests or get help from a teacher. Every year it is discussed and explained. But it makes it SUPER easy to avoid the WJ kids because they all need to be back for 5th period at 12:05. So this is really only a problem before noon which is a weird time for neighborhood people to be eating lunch. If you are seeing them adter noon it was probably an early dismissal day and then they are private citizens that can go where they please.

^This. It’s unreasonable to expect schools to schedule lunch around the convenience of occasional customers at nearby businesses. Schools schedule lunch the way they do for very good reasons. Unlike the students, most adults have some flexibility in their lunch schedule. There’s one hour out of the day that there won’t be seating. OP, go during all the other hours or on days there’s no school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS says it’s nearly impossible to get lunch at school. The cafeteria at school is full and there is no sitting room. Let the poor kids eat lunch!

Do they have one lunch period for the whole school? Why not do 2 or 4 lunch periods?

You want kids to have lunch at 9:30am, or 1:30pm? Do you know what time HS starts? This isn't ES where they have snack breaks.

It would also make class scheduling impossible because so many classes have kids from multiple grade levels plus all the school clubs meet at lunch and all the teachers use lunch for office hours and make up tests. If kids had different lunches, there would be no clubs and no way to do make up tests or get help from a teacher. Every year it is discussed and explained. But it makes it SUPER easy to avoid the WJ kids because they all need to be back for 5th period at 12:05. So this is really only a problem before noon which is a weird time for neighborhood people to be eating lunch. If you are seeing them adter noon it was probably an early dismissal day and then they are private citizens that can go where they please.

^This. It’s unreasonable to expect schools to schedule lunch around the convenience of occasional customers at nearby businesses. Schools schedule lunch the way they do for very good reasons. Unlike the students, most adults have some flexibility in their lunch schedule. There’s one hour out of the day that there won’t be seating. OP, go during all the other hours or on days there’s no school.

Most of the WJ kids are fantastic. They did have to address this a couple of years ago (when perhaps post-Pandemic social skills were at their nadir) and required kids to go grab lunch and return to space at WJ to eat. There were some fights, there were some little old ladies uncomfortable with the mob of kids, etc. But yes, everyone who knows G Square and Wildwood should know that if you don't like HS kids, avoid the area from 11 -12.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are complaining that, for one single hour M-F, well-behaved students attending your local HS are occupying space you would like to occupy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are complaining that, for one single hour M-F, well-behaved students attending your local HS are occupying space you would like to occupy?

Maybe the students aren't well behaved and that's the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are complaining that, for one single hour M-F, well-behaved students attending your local HS are occupying space you would like to occupy?

Maybe the students aren't well behaved and that's the issue.

No that’s definitely not the issue. Here’s what OP posted:

“They aren't rude, just annoying and messy.”

“OP here. I noticed them last year but they were (mostly) really good about buying lunch and taking it back to school or eating while they walked back. I think the businesses complained last year and WJ admin started reminding them not to sit down and eat outside the school. This year they are sitting at indoor and outdoor seating almost as an extension of their cafeteria. Maybe it's just the good weather? Or they need a reminder they shouldn't do it? I don't want to go out to eat there because there aren't any seats left.“

OP just wants the shopping center to be less crowded and noisy from 11-12 and she doesn’t want the overwhelming majority of patrons to be teenagers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are complaining that, for one single hour M-F, well-behaved students attending your local HS are occupying space you would like to occupy?

Maybe the students aren't well behaved and that's the issue.

No that’s definitely not the issue. Here’s what OP posted:

“They aren't rude, just annoying and messy.”

“OP here. I noticed them last year but they were (mostly) really good about buying lunch and taking it back to school or eating while they walked back. I think the businesses complained last year and WJ admin started reminding them not to sit down and eat outside the school. This year they are sitting at indoor and outdoor seating almost as an extension of their cafeteria. Maybe it's just the good weather? Or they need a reminder they shouldn't do it? I don't want to go out to eat there because there aren't any seats left.“

OP just wants the shopping center to be less crowded and noisy from 11-12 and she doesn’t want the overwhelming majority of patrons to be teenagers.

If they are not buying food, they should not be eating there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are complaining that, for one single hour M-F, well-behaved students attending your local HS are occupying space you would like to occupy?

Maybe the students aren't well behaved and that's the issue.

No that’s definitely not the issue. Here’s what OP posted:

“They aren't rude, just annoying and messy.”

“OP here. I noticed them last year but they were (mostly) really good about buying lunch and taking it back to school or eating while they walked back. I think the businesses complained last year and WJ admin started reminding them not to sit down and eat outside the school. This year they are sitting at indoor and outdoor seating almost as an extension of their cafeteria. Maybe it's just the good weather? Or they need a reminder they shouldn't do it? I don't want to go out to eat there because there aren't any seats left.“

OP just wants the shopping center to be less crowded and noisy from 11-12 and she doesn’t want the overwhelming majority of patrons to be teenagers.

If they are not buying food, they should not be eating there.

Most of them are. There’s enough of them who do that it’s going to be very crowded during that hour of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to get lunch at Wildwood during the week, sitting at FlowerChild or Piccolo Piatti, but it's become impossible with the high school students. They buy bagels/starbucks/pizza at the cafeteria and sit at the tables outside of these restaurants. They go inside the restaurants, don't order there, but bring outside food in. The lunch is 11-12 it seems, so nearly peak lunch time. They aren't rude, just annoying and messy. WJ has a security guard and maybe a VP stand outside of Chipotle on the other side of Old Georgetown, but not in Wildwood.

Is it up to the restaurants to tell them to leave? WJ to tell them to stop? I think all four grades have one lunch period when any students are allowed to leave campus, but they have to buy their food and bring it back to the school.

No, they're allowed to eat wherever they like. There is no room inside the school cafeteria for even a fifth of the students. WJ has been overcrowded for YEARS, hence why they built Woodward HS nearby. These are kids who need to breathe fresh air at lunch!

Well, no... if they are not purchasing food there, they should not be sitting there.

That’s for the business to manage.

Yes, but you said "they're allowed to eat wherever they like." No, they're not.

[Anonymous]

When will Woodward open? I meant when WJ won't be over crowded?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol. I went to WJ 20 years ago and it was the same complaining.

30 years ago for me and yup, same! Lol

I graduated 37 years ago and it was the same back then in the literal 1980s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When will Woodward open? I meant when WJ won't be over crowded?

Excellent question. The current prediction is two years from now, but that depends on the construction for the other school staying on schedule. It's already slipped back 2 years from the initial schedule. And even then they will probably only move sophomore and freshman, so it will be 4 years before the full transition to whatever the new normal is.
Even after Woodward opens, WJ is still going to be pretty crowded, and they won't be able to fit all the kids in the cafeteria even then, I think. They will go from insane, unsafe overcrowding to ordinary MCPS incredibly large and crowded HS.
We bought in this neighborhood 15 years ago and they were already talking about a plan to fix the HS problem. I never imagined that my kids would actually be done with school before it was even slightly fixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol. I went to WJ 20 years ago and it was the same complaining.

30 years ago for me and yup, same! Lol

I graduated 37 years ago and it was the same back then in the literal 1980s.

I would actually love to hear where y'all were going. Was there a Jack n' the Box? Hamburger Hamlet? We know you weren't going to Chipotle, and even Subway was not a thing back then.
I didn't go to school around here, but Pizza Hut was where we all went when we went off campus They had a kind of 30 minute pizza that was still kind of gooey in the middle. I don't think that there were any other options!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are complaining that, for one single hour M-F, well-behaved students attending your local HS are occupying space you would like to occupy?

Maybe the students aren't well behaved and that's the issue.

That is not the issue. The kids are fine and most are super polite. I avoid the area from 11:00-12:00 and it's not that big of a deal.

[Anonymous]

Nobody is bringing cafeteria food to wildwood. That’s simply impossible because of how long the cafeteria line is. There isn’t enough time. They are just buying food at Bethesda bagels etc. WJ has had open lunch for decades. (I graduated from there in 95 and it looked exactly the same 30 years ago)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When will Woodward open? I meant when WJ won't be over crowded?

Excellent question. The current prediction is two years from now, but that depends on the construction for the other school staying on schedule. It's already slipped back 2 years from the initial schedule. And even then they will probably only move sophomore and freshman, so it will be 4 years before the full transition to whatever the new normal is.
Even after Woodward opens, WJ is still going to be pretty crowded, and they won't be able to fit all the kids in the cafeteria even then, I think. They will go from insane, unsafe overcrowding to ordinary MCPS incredibly large and crowded HS.
We bought in this neighborhood 15 years ago and they were already talking about a plan to fix the HS problem. I never imagined that my kids would actually be done with school before it was even slightly fixed.

WJ will not be over crowded or even pretty crowded once Woodward opens

Woodward slipped back 2 years before construction started (delayed funding, because, there's never enough), then slipped one more once under construction - it will open in in Fall of 27 and won't be delayed further. It's already open and working for Northwood, they are just working on phase 2 now (additional parking, fields, auxiliary gym and auditorium)