Students at hundreds of New York City schools are heading to the cafeteria at extremely early or late lunch periods, based on a comprehensive review of school lunchtime data by City Limits. Schools generally start classes around 8 a.m. and end around 3 p.m., with some beginning even earlier.
A total of 100 New York City schools (3.9 percent) start serving lunch before 10 a.m. Another 431 schools (17 percent) begin lunch between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., while 762 schools (30 percent) begin lunch between 10:31 and 11 a.m.
In total, students at 51 percent of schools citywide head to the lunchroom at 11:00 a.m. or earlier. At least 25 other schools begin the first lunch period at 1:30 p.m. or later.
City Limits’ David Brand logged the lunchtime data for all 2,535 schools in the OFNS School Food’s searchable website.
Read our article here. View the data below.
Citywide
| New York City | The Bronx | Brooklyn | Manhattan | Staten Island | Queens | |
| Total schools | 2535 | 595 | 775 | 464 | 130 | 571 |
| First lunch starts at: | ||||||
| 11 a.m. or earlier | 1293 | 308 | 330 | 206 | 79 | 370 |
| % of schools | 51 | 51.8 | 42.6 | 44.4 | 60.8 | 64.8 |
| before 9:59 a.m. | 100 | 16 | 21 | 5 | 12 | 46 |
| 10-10:30 a.m. | 431 | 123 | 99 | 60 | 25 | 124 |
| 10:31-11 a.m. | 762 | 169 | 210 | 141 | 42 | 200 |
| 1:30 p.m. or later | 25 | 7 | 13 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
