Should You Have an Assigned Seat at Lunch? 

Your stomach is rumbling as you walk to the school cafeteria for lunch. Once you fill your tray, do you plop down wherever you want, or do you head to an assigned seat? 

At some middle schools across the country, students must sit in designated areas—either the same table or the same seat—every day. School officials and others claim that assigned seats benefit students by helping them make friends outside their comfort zone. Plus, some people point out, the setup ensures that no one gets stuck eating alone. 

But not everyone agrees that middle schoolers should have assigned seats in the cafeteria. Some students argue that lunch is the only time during the school day that they get to unwind with friends. And they can’t do that if they aren’t allowed to choose their table.

Should school officials decide who you sit with at lunch? Consider the arguments and then choose a side.

^{SOURCE: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention}

Some people warn that you might miss out on new friendships if you only sit with people you know at lunch. Lila Light, an eighth-grader from Illinois, says assigned seating mixes things up in a good way by connecting students with different interests. “It can help you get more friends, and you can branch out and get new ideas and think in different ways,” she explains. 

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University agree. In a 2022 study, they found that students are more likely to become close friends with peers they are assigned to sit near in class than with others who sit farther away.

Also, supporters of assigned seating point out that it can help prevent students from being left out or bullied. According to the group Stop Bullying, 25 percent of middle school students who’ve reported being bullied say it happened in the cafeteria. Olivia Miles, a sixth-grader from Connecticut, doesn’t have assigned seating at her school. But she thinks it would be good to have, especially if bullying became an issue. “If there’s a group of girls who are being mean or anything, they’d all be split up,” she says.

Although there’s value in making new connections, some students argue that nothing beats sitting with your friends. After all, the school day might last seven or eight hours, and your friends might have different classes than you. Thaddeus Robinson, a sixth-grader from North Carolina, says lunch gives him the opportunity to reconnect with his buddies in the cafeteria. “It’s nice that I can catch up with them and they can see what I’m doing,” he points out. 

Also, it can be stressful if you can’t sit with friends, argues Sowmiya Vellmani, an eighth-grader from New Jersey. She didn’t have a positive experience with assigned seating at a former school. “Whenever I sit with people I’m not really familiar with, I definitely feel self-conscious,” she explains. Being uncomfortable around other students made her lose her appetite or not even want to eat her lunch. In contrast, getting to choose lunch seats can improve students’ moods and their learning. “Whenever I have some fun with my friends, I feel kind of recharged for the last few periods of my classes,” Sowmiya says.