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This might seem like an easy fix, but it comes up about once a decade in our small district.
The school board is requiring the kids to have recess before lunch because they think that kids might throw away less food. They did not ask the cooks or the school principals for input and did not look at the requirements in how many minutes the students must attend school. At least 2 other times this has been suggested, it has also been mentioned that the students would need to attend school an extra 3 hours a week, the one cook at each school would most likely put in an extra 2 hours each week to give the kids more than 2 hours between breakfast and lunch.
Our district wants to save money, but everytime this is suggested we spend hours explaining it, and it is realized it can't be done. Our kids are on a federal school lunch program which requires that they be given a full and healthy meal yet the kids only choose to eat the things they want to, like normal children.
I don't understand what you're getting at. When I was a kid, we had two recesses each day. One mid-morning, a period before lunch. And one in the afternoon, a period after lunch. Why can't the kids have a recess before lunch?
I work as a lunch lady and I think giving the kids recess first and then lunch is a good idea. The kids waste so much food because they are in such a hurry to get outside and play with their friends. They come up to the window to hand me their tray still gobbling the food as they rush out the door. Then the get in trouble for bringing food out onto the playground, but they are just in such a rush to get outside that they grab the food and run.
If they had recess first then they could run around, see their friends, let loose all that energy and increase their appetite even more. Then they could come inside and get a hot, healthy meal and actually take the time to enjoy it without woofing it down as fast as possible. The way it is now I throw away so much uneaten food and milk every single day. It's such a waste.
My kids eat breakfast starting at 7:30 and ending by 8:00. They have lunch currently at 11:30, but if they had recess then they would probably have lunch starting at 12:00p.m. I think this seems reasonable.
Maybe OP school should try it for a month or two and see how it goes and then if it doesn't work out go back to the way it is now. I don't see why trying something new that may benefit the students is a bad thing.
I'm a bit confused by your post too. Is there no recess between when the school day starts and lunchtime? If so, that kind of flies in the face of what we know about child development and how kids learn.
I don't get why the cook has to put in more hours? Seems like it's not increasing their workload, just changing order of service?
On a related matter, why are American school summer holidays still so long? If that break was shorter, kids wouldn't have to start school so ridiculously early in the morning to get in the required number of minutes in the short school terms (or stay later because of a change such as the one suggested), they wouldn't get so burned out during the school year because they have more frequent, shorter breaks and the year is more spread out, they wouldn't have as much of a "summer slide" in reading etc, working parents wouldn't have to spend so much on camps, it's a more efficient use of a public asset... Very few other countries have more than 6-7 weeks at summer, it seems that it's still that way here just because that's how it's been for a long time.
Yes, our public school kids finished school on Thursday and resume on 31 January, so six weeks vacation, including the Christmas and New Year public holidays. I think teachers have to teach 202 days a year.
My grandson’s school has a fruit break as well as a recess before lunch time. But mostly kids bring their own food and eat picnic style. Usually a canteen sells some sandwiches etc.
I'm a bit confused by your post too. Is there no recess between when the school day starts and lunchtime? If so, that kind of flies in the face of what we know about child development and how kids learn.
I don't get why the cook has to put in more hours? Seems like it's not increasing their workload, just changing order of service?
On a related matter, why are American school summer holidays still so long? If that break was shorter, kids wouldn't have to start school so ridiculously early in the morning to get in the required number of minutes in the short school terms (or stay later because of a change such as the one suggested), they wouldn't get so burned out during the school year because they have more frequent, shorter breaks and the year is more spread out, they wouldn't have as much of a "summer slide" in reading etc, working parents wouldn't have to spend so much on camps, it's a more efficient use of a public asset... Very few other countries have more than 6-7 weeks at summer, it seems that it's still that way here just because that's how it's been for a long time.
It seems to me like the kids go to lunch and then have recess. I don’t know why this results in more food waste unless kids eat on their own schedules and then rush to recess. I have seen a variety of styles, but it seems to me a way around this is to have the teacher take the children from lunch to recess at a set time. I was a sub and worked in one school that did it this way. I think there were 4 lunches and lunch+recess was a full period. Half would have recess before lunch and half after. The teachers would be responsible for monitoring their own students during recess and taking them to/from lunch. There was an orderly dismissal from lunch so the kids could not just shove the food down and go to recess whenever they felt like it.
School holidays have nothing to do with why the school day starts early. It usually has to do with the bus scheduling so that a bus driver is able to pick up/drop off kids from all levels. If all schools start/end around the same time, it is harder to find people to drive the buses because it is not a full-time position (over 30 hours a week or so). Where I went to school, buses typically started in the morning at 6, and the drivers had to pick up the bus from the depot to take it to their routes. The late starting schools typically started at 9:15-9:30. I think schools ended from about 2-4:30, so that would give the drivers another 3-4 hours of work.
Summer holidays are also for practical reasons. When I was working in Japan, they were in the process of installing AC because it was not really possible for them to offer school in summer due to the heat. Kids were actually paying to do 3 weeks of school in a hotel, which was cost prohibitive for many families. We have the same issue in the US. Many schools do not have AC. Where I live, I think only 3-4 schools have AC in the entire building, two of which are the high schools. It typically gets into the 80s and 90s in the summer. THey’ve had drama because the HS start earlier than the middle/elementary schools, but there really is no way to make the other schools start earlier. It is simply too hot for the kids. In some coastal school districts, the earlier the school year starts, the more days that can be canceled due to hurricanes. In Europe the weather is cooler and they don’t have as extreme weather like we have in the US.
Plus, if you want to talk about extra pay, teachers usually have an hourly wage that is spread out among how many days they are required to be there. I have a friend who teaches in her state’s public virtual school. She is a yea round employee and her pay is higher than what you get as a 10-month employee. I think most teachers typically have around 200-day work years while a standard American worker is a 240-day employee.
The kids that are required to get a recess in the morning get it. This is just regarding the lunch/recess time.
Our kids have a timed lunch, so they have more than enough time to eat and can stay as long as they need to. We are a small school -30 kids. k-12. I am sure that some of this is with the use of the gym, since we live in the far north and when it is below 0, our kids do not go outside, so the gym gets a lot of use and scheduling could be a problem.
On a related matter, why are American school summer holidays still so long? If that break was shorter, kids wouldn't have to start school so ridiculously early in the morning to get in the required number of minutes in the short school terms (or stay later because of a change such as the one suggested), they wouldn't get so burned out during the school year because they have more frequent, shorter breaks and the year is more spread out, they wouldn't have as much of a "summer slide" in reading etc, working parents wouldn't have to spend so much on camps, it's a more efficient use of a public asset... Very few other countries have more than 6-7 weeks at summer, it seems that it's still that way here just because that's how it's been for a long time.
I know it's a side topic, but a though on summers. Our kids summers were much shorter than when I was growing up. And even us, as parents hated it. The biggest problem was trying to schedule a family vacation time where both parents and kids were off at the same time. Because every parent out there was trying to get two weeks during the same short summer break, there were always winners and loses who didn't get a vacation. If that's two parents with two different employers, doubly hard.
I found that rather than losing ground over the summer, that's where the kids gained ground. Their brains needed "down time" to process all that stuff that had been thrown at them all year. Down time is important for that to happen. Likewise, for those who could take vacation during summer, it was a chance to experience something other than the local area. Expand their minds. If I could be czar of all the schools, class would end before Memorial Day and not start back until after Labor Day. Funny thing. We talk of trying to add more days of school due to test scores going down. Yet the "happy time" being targeted had full summers off.
I'm a bit confused by your post too. Is there no recess between when the school day starts and lunchtime? If so, that kind of flies in the face of what we know about child development and how kids learn.
On a related matter, why are American school summer holidays still so long? If that break was shorter, kids wouldn't have to start school so ridiculously early in the morning to get in the required number of minutes in the short school terms (or stay later because of a change such as the one suggested), they wouldn't get so burned out during the school year because they have more frequent, shorter breaks and the year is more spread out, they wouldn't have as much of a "summer slide" in reading etc, working parents wouldn't have to spend so much on camps, it's a more efficient use of a public asset... Very few other countries have more than 6-7 weeks at summer, it seems that it's still that way here just because that's how it's been for a long time.
Neither myself or my kids had recess before lunchtime. There was only a short recess after lunch.
Trading frequent, shorter breaks for a long summer does not help working parents. It just means more frequent, shorter camps - a whole bunch of two day or a week long camps.
Personally, I loved my kids summer vacation. New York's schools start in September and Texas's starts in August. Depends on the State.
Dear OP, I see your point about lunch first if for no other reason than that when kids come in from recess their hands are going to be somewhat filthy and little germ factories going right into their mouths.
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