No off-campus lunches for high schools

By Emily Richmond

Friday, May 24, 2002 | 9:58 a.m.

It's official -- beginning with the new school year in August, only students at six Clark County School District rural and outlying schools will be allowed to come and go for lunch periods, while their urban peers will be required to stay on campus.

District administrators say they have been discussing closing the high school campuses for several months. The decision was moved up following the May 9 lunchtime car crash that claimed the lives of Las Vegas High School seniors Natasha Keeter and Ashley Troester.

Metro Police say Keeter was speeding in order to make it back to school before the end of the lunch period when she lost control of the 1987 Ford Thunderbird and struck a light pole. Three other passengers, also students at Las Vegas High, were critically injured.

At their meeting Thursday, School Board members threw their support behind the campus closures, even as they sympathized with the students who would be losing privileges.

A heartfelt appeal by Advanced Technologies Academy sophomore Brittany Kreimeyer, the only student to show up at the meeting, wasn't enough to sway either the board or School District officials.

"I would rather be the mean guy and tell kids they can't go to McDonald's than risk losing one more life," said Clark County schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia.

The district's regulations already require high schools to be closed during lunch periods. The schools that have been open up to now have were granted waivers, Garcia said.

Plans are under way to expand food services at the high schools to handle the sharp increase in cafeteria customers, Garcia said.

Kreimeyer said for many of her classmates the lunch period was the only time they had to run errands, stop by the public library or just catch a break from the school setting. The May 9 wreck, while tragic, shouldn't result in a loss of privileges for students district-wide, Kreimeyer said.

When the new school year begins in August, only six of the district's 30 high schools will be allowed to let students come and go during lunch periods -- Moapa Valley, Laughlin, Boulder City and the Community College high schools.