A high school principal in Georgia posted a picture of confiscated food on Facebook, captioning it “You cannot have Uber Eats deliver food to school… think about safety and logistics of 1000 students randomly calling and meeting Uber on the street all times of the day.”

This sparked a debate on whether or not schools should be allowed to ban food delivery services like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub. While the services are popular among students who want to buy food without having to leave their school campus, many school administrations have had problems with food delivery services, considering them to be disruptive and unsafe.

While the issue of safety is important, students should be able to order from food services without having the food that they paid for taken away from them by school administration. It would be unfair to students to revoke their ability to order food the way they want to. Ultimately, they are using their own money to buy the food and are paying for the service of it being brought it to them, so it is their right to keep the food without having it being taken away.

Issues of safety and security can be solved by making the students collect their food on the street or in front of the school, instead of letting the delivery person come inside the school. There could also be restrictions placed on when students can order food. Delivery service use could be limited to lunch periods to prevent any interruptions from students leaving to get their food.

If a student has forgotten their lunch or wants to eat from a place they cannot drive to, ordering the food from a delivery service is a simple and easy solution. They are using either their parent’s or their own money, so it is not costing the school any money for the students to be ordering food. In 2018, MCPS only received a C+ for school lunches by the School Food Environment Grades Project. This rating was due to the limited and unappetizing lunch menu found in many schools. With unsatisfactory school lunches, it makes sense that many students would prefer to have their lunch delivered.  

Although many schools have reasons to be concerned about safety within the school, there are still ways for students to order food without violating the safety of the school. If students are respectful and understand the school’s rules about when they can order food, they should be able to order the food that they want for lunch.

Delivery services are popular among high school students today because of how easy and convenient they are to use, and it would be unfair to students if they were banned from using the delivery services.