Sit with us. This simple phrase is said and heard by countless students every school day. It is so easily said and such a relief to hear. But it is not heard often enough. For all of the students who have a place to sit during lunch, there are also kids who feel alone. To some, this does not seem like a very big deal. To those affected, it is everything. Many students and teachers believe the social aspect of high school plays a big role in preparing the students for after high school. When those students cannot break the barrier between other students, they cannot have connections with other students.

At PVHS, we have four lunches per day on a closed campus. Because we have so many students and a limited number of tables, there are many cases in which students sit with different people every day, voluntarily or out of necessity. Although this is an easy reality for many students, others are not so quick to make friends. Kids are or have been bullied, shunned and rejected by their peers. The memory of this makes it hard for those students to ask to sit with other students; in extreme cases, the students are continuously rejected by their classmates and have no way to sit where they want to.

This is a situation faced by students all over the country. A junior from California was faced with this form of bullying and was moved to take action. Natalie Hampton is a student who has been affected by emotional and physical bullying, “at my old school, I was completely ostracized by all of my classmates, and so I had to eat lunch alone every day. When you walk into the lunchroom and you see all the tables of everyone sitting there and you know that going up to them would only end in rejection, you feel extremely alone and extremely isolated, and your stomach drops.” Because of this, Hampton created an IOS application called Sit With Us. Sit With Us allow students to host and search for “open lunches” in which students are welcome to eat at that table. Student ambassadors can take it upon themselves to give other students the chance to feel belonging among their peers. Hampton believes this app can be used to change the environment of the lunchroom. “I wanted to create something that would address bullying, but in a positive way.” In other words, this app was made to create more unity in schools.

Sit With Us could bring a constructive change to PV. Because some students are too embarrassed to ask to sit down, Sit With Us is all anonymous and over the phone. “This way it’s very private. It’s through the phone. No one else has to know… and you know that you’re not going to be rejected once you get to the table.” Some students believe that this app could be used to selectively bully the students who use it. So far, there have only been positive results but it is too early to tell. Could this app change PVHS for the better?