Going to school and having survived this winter in New England, I can tell you we do not eat outside. 
Yes, the cafeteria cannot accommodate all the students at once as it was built at a time when the student body was smaller.
We have three lunch periods approx. 25 minutes long
We have four lunch periods. Welcome to 10:30 am lunch.
I think there are 2 lunch periods. My HS had 3.
I thought most schools had staggered lunch. It seems like a waste of space to build a cafeteria big enough for everyone to eat at once. Heck, every school that either my kids or I ever went to had staggered lunch periods.
My school had 3200 students (less now but when I went there) and still only one lunch time. The Cafeteria probably only sat 7 or 8 hundred, but most people would go off campus/eat in their car/eat in a teachers room for lunch.
Our lunch period was a bit shorter than the normal class periods. It was in between 3rd and 4th period, started at around 10:45 I think.
Dās school used to mandate a study hall once a student signed up for six or more AP level classes (8 classes, 4 met a day). I donāt know if they still do that. The school went from three staggered lunch periods to a single one hour-long lunch period for all students. Students could eat their lunch, hang with friends, talk to teachers (they had āoffice timeā certain days each week), take make-up tests during this time. The kids could eat throughout the school at designated places. I guess some kids did their homework or studied if they felt the need. Everyone was dubious before this single lunch period but everyone raved about it afterwards. Students could eat with friends on different schedules/tracks, teachers had more control over this time, parents also liked it because it made scheduling make up work so much simpler.
Happy to see some. When we lived in South Carolina we didnāt have one.
At my sonās HS, they allow you to do either regular study hall or what they call AP study hall, with the main difference being you are allowed to leave school grounds during the period for whatever reason. You have to be taking at least three APs and to be a junior or senior to do an AP study hall.
My son is a rising sophomore, and has actually been going back and forth about whether to include a study hall next year. The first six classes he is planning to take are Precal, Honors Chem, AP Physics, AP World, Honors English and Spanish III. He has been stuck on whether to take AP Psychology or do a study hall for the seventh class. Initially he put down study hall, but yesterday he emailed the counselor to have her switch him into AP Psych.
He asked me my opinion, and I recommended the study hall. My concern is not the AP Psych class, which I understand to be one of the lighter APs to handle, but rather the homework load in the other classes and having the time to manage it all while doing two varsity sports. I thought he would appreciate having the dedicated time every day blocked out to keep up with it all. He is a pretty diligent kid and I think he would use the time for homework rather than socializing. Just donāt want to see him burn out. He has plenty of room to catch AP Psych in the next couple of years.
In the end though, it had to be his decision, and he made it. After all, he is the one who has to do the work, not me!
Anyway, shared because it is a real life example of why a study hall could be a practical thing for some kids. Especially those who have plenty of room in their four year plan anyway to take all of the APs or other advanced classes that are offered and they are interest in, to explore areas of interest, etc. If it comes down to either filling your schedule with a class you really arenāt that excited about or taking a study hall, I say take the study hall. Use the saved homework time to do something else you enjoy, or just enjoy being a kid.
At my kidsā high school (2,000+ students) the one block of the day is 2 hours long instead of 90 mins. There are 4 lunches in that 2 hours so some kids go to lunch before their class, some during and some after. There is no way to skip lunch and add a class.
That is the same system as our school uses. I donāt think itās appropriate for schools to schedule kids with no lunch at all. In our school, because of the crazy lunch schedule (where kids can and do have lunch at 10:30 am one day and 12 the next), some kids tend to eat in class. That was unheard of in my high school, but itās inevitable with this kind of schedule. These kids are still growing and I think some break to eat, drink and use the bathroom is needed. I also think it would be distracting to have kids munching away in class, opening containers, etc. especially if itās quite a few kids in the classroom because they never have any lunch period. It also creates cleaning, health and safety issues. I pity the poor kids with food allergies who sit down in English class only to discover peanut butter on their desk. At least I believe they clean the cafeteria tables between lunch shifts. I doubt anyone is cleaning the desks between 2nd and 3rd block of English.
My kidsā school has a similar setup. I think when you go to lunch depends on where you are on campus during the class block when lunch happens.
My sonās district has study halls, some kids have one or two, but some have none.
We did have the split lunch/half study hall thing at my HS, which worked out well, but I think they donāt have enough teachers to monitor the study halls to do that at my sonās school.
Making athletes take a study hall instead of gym would be a great way for the kids stressed the most to get time in to do their homework.