This is an issue that will continue to become more common as schools become overcrowded. There will be multiple lunch periods. Pack snacks and hope that the teachers are cool about giving time to students to eat a snack.

New poster here to say I feel your pain. My child needs to eat at consistent times or very quickly gets headaches. Send a snack in the backpack every day and tell him to snack as needed. Also send water every day which can help keep hunger at bay for a bit.
Good luck.

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Our school has breakfast for everybody in the classroom 8:05-8:15. Lunch is at 10:17. He gets home about 4. So, 5.5 hours between chances to eat. Which would be no problem for adults but middle school boys are in the midst of the biggest growth spurts of their lives so they get hungry a lot. Math is last in the day and he doesn't want to be hangry. He'll just have to see how it goes but I like the grape or quiet snack idea.

Both of my boys have had lunches like this at some point. They both managed just fine although they did come through the door hungry when they got home from school. 5.5 hours is not that long to wait between meals. I've always packed their lunches so that as soon as they get into the cafeteria they can sit down and eat, not worry about standing in lines for food.

They haven't asked to have a snack packed for them since elementary school although they do request an extra bottle of water - they get thirsty.

If you do pack a snack and you are worried about noisy wrappers, you could always take the snack out of the wrapper and put it into a plastic baggie.