Principals must now monitor lunch periods in the cafeteria
ElizMcCord said:
....teachers need to eat at lunch as well. ...
ElizMcCord said:
Klinker said:^^ this exactly. Kids need to feel safe in the cafeteria, teachers need to eat at lunch as well. It’s the Principal’s responsibility to provide a safe environment. They can solve the crisis once and for all or they can supervise lunch. If I’m a busy Principal without 2 hours a Day to ‘waste’, guess what will be at the top of my agenda?
max_weisenfeld said:This problem has been going unaddressed for years. I suspect putting the school's top administrators in the lunch room will, at the very least, motivate administration to come up with a viable long term solution.
This is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem designed to appease an outcry, not solve the problem. If the principals do not have the proper resources to supervise the lunchrooms, putting each school's top administrator in there instead of in their proper position is not going to be a long-term solution, either. It is a waste of resources. Not saying that using resources to solve the lunch room is the wrong answer, but that this is the wrong resource.
Are you proposing that teachers need to eat in the cafeteria with the kids?
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
ElizMcCord said:
....teachers need to eat at lunch as well. ...ElizMcCord said:Are you proposing that teachers need to eat in the cafeteria with the kids?
Klinker said:^^ this exactly. Kids need to feel safe in the cafeteria, teachers need to eat at lunch as well. It’s the Principal’s responsibility to provide a safe environment. They can solve the crisis once and for all or they can supervise lunch. If I’m a busy Principal without 2 hours a Day to ‘waste’, guess what will be at the top of my agenda?
max_weisenfeld said:This problem has been going unaddressed for years. I suspect putting the school's top administrators in the lunch room will, at the very least, motivate administration to come up with a viable long term solution.
This is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem designed to appease an outcry, not solve the problem. If the principals do not have the proper resources to supervise the lunchrooms, putting each school's top administrator in there instead of in their proper position is not going to be a long-term solution, either. It is a waste of resources. Not saying that using resources to solve the lunch room is the wrong answer, but that this is the wrong resource.
There was a comment further up suggesting that sometimes teachers supervised lunch and got paid a stipend for it. I think teachers need their break. They work full days.
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
ElizMcCord said:
....teachers need to eat at lunch as well. ...ElizMcCord said:Are you proposing that teachers need to eat in the cafeteria with the kids?
Klinker said:^^ this exactly. Kids need to feel safe in the cafeteria, teachers need to eat at lunch as well. It’s the Principal’s responsibility to provide a safe environment. They can solve the crisis once and for all or they can supervise lunch. If I’m a busy Principal without 2 hours a Day to ‘waste’, guess what will be at the top of my agenda?
max_weisenfeld said:This problem has been going unaddressed for years. I suspect putting the school's top administrators in the lunch room will, at the very least, motivate administration to come up with a viable long term solution.
This is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem designed to appease an outcry, not solve the problem. If the principals do not have the proper resources to supervise the lunchrooms, putting each school's top administrator in there instead of in their proper position is not going to be a long-term solution, either. It is a waste of resources. Not saying that using resources to solve the lunch room is the wrong answer, but that this is the wrong resource.
Why not? Maybe 1-2 days a month? Same logic about getting to know kids.
in some schools it is worked out so a teacher supervises a lunch period while also having their own separate lunch period so its not giving up their break time.
conandrob240 said:
Formerlyjerseyjack said:Why not? Maybe 1-2 days a month? Same logic about getting to know kids.
ElizMcCord said:
....teachers need to eat at lunch as well. ...ElizMcCord said:Are you proposing that teachers need to eat in the cafeteria with the kids?
Klinker said:^^ this exactly. Kids need to feel safe in the cafeteria, teachers need to eat at lunch as well. It’s the Principal’s responsibility to provide a safe environment. They can solve the crisis once and for all or they can supervise lunch. If I’m a busy Principal without 2 hours a Day to ‘waste’, guess what will be at the top of my agenda?
max_weisenfeld said:This problem has been going unaddressed for years. I suspect putting the school's top administrators in the lunch room will, at the very least, motivate administration to come up with a viable long term solution.
This is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem designed to appease an outcry, not solve the problem. If the principals do not have the proper resources to supervise the lunchrooms, putting each school's top administrator in there instead of in their proper position is not going to be a long-term solution, either. It is a waste of resources. Not saying that using resources to solve the lunch room is the wrong answer, but that this is the wrong resource.
That would be a contractual change and would result in approximately $30.00 per teacher per lunch period. If it is one teacher per school, not so much a tax burden.
Once every single commentator here spends daily lunch periods with students, of any age, for an entire school year, then they may comment on workable solutions!
1. Public School lunch periods are NOT designed for promoting civility, and NEVER HAVE BEEN!!!! 100 students at a time are herded into a small, loud, frenzied space, to wait on line for their meal. If they are lucky to be at the front of the line then they get their full lunch period, maybe 20 minutes???? Then they are ushered out to play for maybe another 15 minutes, of which 7 of those 15 minutes are spent lining up in the cafeteria and lining up up to come back inside. RIGHT HERE IS THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM!
2. Lunch Aides are WOEFULLY UNDERPAID! But, hey everyone complains about their taxes!!! Lunch Aides are verbally abused by obnoxious, ill mannered, poorly behaved children on a daily basis, and given NO SUPPORT by administration, because no one will admit they have some very entitled, obnoxious children. Nationwide, District and Administration cows to the litigious nature of these economically powerful families.
3. I have yet to see any HIGHLY EDUCATED individuals take on this position on an annual basis! Why? YOU COULD NOT AFFORD TO LIVE IN THIS TOWN, IF YOU DID.
4. Individually, most of these wrongfully, vilified lunch aides, are lovely individuals, whom have little training to wrangle a group of children, to redirect their misbehavior, and most importantly have little to no materials of substance for the children to play with during their much needed, but far too short, recess period. During my elementary years there were MULTIPLE LARGE CLIMBING UNITS, SWINGS, SLIDES, etc. to climb on and accommodate all playground students at once, versus the coveted, singular structures existing today, which breed more strife and encourage power and control play. IN ADDITION THERE WAS A LENGTHY RECESS PERIOD BUILT INTO THE DAY OUTSIDE LUNCH RECESS ALL THE WAY THROUGH 5th GRADE!
5. I remember my elementary years, my VP was present during the entire lunch period. Was it any better? NO! He was just the socially acceptable bully and enforcer.
6. If you really want change, change the format of PUBLIC SCHOOL LUNCH PERIODS AND THE SCHOOL DAY ALL TOGETHER, go speak at your town BOE meetings, Trenton and DC to STOP THE HIGH STAKES TESTING MADNESS, STOP THE CORPORATE BUSINESS MODEL OF EDUCATING CHILDREN, I mean CORPORATE MODEL OF DATA AND STATISTICS, disguised as EDUCATION, PROMOTE CITIZENSHIP, REAL, AUTHENTIC LEARNING BASED ON OUR UNDERSTANDING OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, and I guarantee you gun violence among our youth and in schools will disappear!
7. THIS ISSUE IS FAR DEEPER and COMPLEX than putting a band-aid on a century old problem of inadequate supervision of lunch periods. IF ONLY PRINCIPALS WERE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO EDUCATE, LEAD, and GUIDE as was their original intent on entering the profession, rather than the caretaker of statistics, there would be no need for this thread.
This is not a “band-aid” . Did you ever consider that lunch with the children may be a welcome respite from the paperwork, etc. that you mentioned?
annielou said:
This is not a “band-aid” . Did you ever consider that lunch with the children may be a welcome respite from the paperwork, etc. that you mentioned?
What respite? The paperwork, teacher evaluations, etc., still has to be done.
What about stay at home parents? Maybe something can be worked out with the Parents Associations to have them volunteer to sit with the children. A welcome respite from the daily grind.
annielou said:
This is not a “band-aid” . Did you ever consider that lunch with the children may be a welcome respite from the paperwork, etc. that you mentioned?
Where and how did you surmise that spending time with children was not welcomed by educators??????? I never suggested that! This is exactly my point, corporate models of education have desecrated relationship building. What is your expectation for the week/work day of a school administrator, teacher, etc? Do you know that most principals in this district are at their schools by 6-6:30 AM and leave near dinner time, and most often return within an hour for evening events at their schools or colleague's schools?????????
In some countries, lunch period is a "class." Students sit at 10-person round tables with a teacher. Each student has a job. Some set the table (utensils, napkins, plates). Some fill the water jug or get the milk cartons. The food is brought to the table from the kitchen and is passed around family style. The purpose is not only to fill their bellies mid-day, but to socialize them.
it would be fantastic to me if an educated professional were there to coach and guide when they see bullying /ostracizing and other detrimental behaviors.
NikoleHannah-Jones4President said:
annielou said:Where and how did you surmise that spending time with children was not welcomed by educators??????? I never suggested that! This is exactly my point, corporate models of education have desecrated relationship building. What is your expectation for the week/work day of a school administrator, teacher, etc? Do you know that most principals in this district are at their schools by 6-6:30 AM and leave near dinner time, and most often return within an hour for evening events at their schools or colleague's schools?????????
This is not a “band-aid” . Did you ever consider that lunch with the children may be a welcome respite from the paperwork, etc. that you mentioned?
Did this for 35 years. Also lunch duty. Also weekends and summers. So please spare me your multiple question marks.
NikoleHannah-Jones4President said:
Once every single commentator here spends daily lunch periods with students, of any age, for an entire school year, then they may comment on workable solutions!
1. Public School lunch periods are NOT designed for promoting civility, and NEVER HAVE BEEN!!!! 100 students at a time are herded into a small, loud, frenzied space, to wait on line for their meal. If they are lucky to be at the front of the line then they get their full lunch period, maybe 20 minutes???? Then they are ushered out to play for maybe another 15 minutes, of which 7 of those 15 minutes are spent lining up in the cafeteria and lining up up to come back inside. RIGHT HERE IS THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM!
This is a real issue. Training children to scarf down food as fast as they possibly can in order to be able to finish their lunch before the period ends is not healthy.
It’s important for a school leader to schedule adequate time for lunch and recess. Advantages of being in the cafeteria include monitoring food distribution, observing what in fact is being fed to the children ( that can be a real eye- opener), checking on kids who appear to be isolated, looking out for bullying episodes or arguments that could potentially spill over into the classroom, chatting or playing games with students , the list goes on. It’s a wonderful and refreshing midday experience for teachers and/ or admins
it can be a great break for the children as well. Like everything else, it’s how you plan for it and implement
conandrob240 said:
it would be fantastic to me if an educated professional were there to coach and guide when they see bullying /ostracizing and other detrimental behaviors.
Trust me, administration and teachers would love it too! If only school districts would budget for that..............................
annielou said:
NikoleHannah-Jones4President said:Did this for 35 years. Also lunch duty. Also weekends and summers. So please spare me your multiple question marks.
annielou said:Where and how did you surmise that spending time with children was not welcomed by educators??????? I never suggested that! This is exactly my point, corporate models of education have desecrated relationship building. What is your expectation for the week/work day of a school administrator, teacher, etc? Do you know that most principals in this district are at their schools by 6-6:30 AM and leave near dinner time, and most often return within an hour for evening events at their schools or colleague's schools?????????
This is not a “band-aid” . Did you ever consider that lunch with the children may be a welcome respite from the paperwork, etc. that you mentioned?
I will grant you singular question marks
Help me understand what you did for 35 years? I am unclear. I am also curious on.............What is your expectation for the week/work day of a school administrator, teacher, etc? Do you know that most principals in this district are at their schools by 6-6:30 AM and leave near dinner time, and most often return within an hour for evening events at their schools or colleague's schools?????????
What you have described as the responsibilities of a school administrator is not unusual. We are paid to be CEO’s if you will, and expect to be treated as professionals. However, we are also public servants (retired for some time now here) and as such do whatever has to be done in that service. Late nights, early mornings, weekends, whatever. Those are my personal expectations because it was what I expected from myself and what I would expect from any person working in that capacity. It’s not easy.
such is the life of a top “executive”. That’s the way work is today. I am sure their hours are lessened over the summer and they have a lot more holidays than the average executive.
Why can’t teachers/ counselors/ administrators take a turn a few times a month in the cafeteria? If they work 20 days a month (high estimate) and there are 20 or 30 or more teachers, it would literally be once or twice a month.
There goes that holidays and summers off narrative. Must work on MOL but I will tell you it bears little resemblance to reality. In my experience anyway.
there’s more opportunity for time off than a person makes in the private sector and the days there are just as long or longer at the highest rank. To me it’s irrelevant to the discussion but miss “for president” keeps bringing it up.
BG9 said:
annielou said:What respite? The paperwork, teacher evaluations, etc., still has to be done.
This is not a “band-aid” . Did you ever consider that lunch with the children may be a welcome respite from the paperwork, etc. that you mentioned?
What about stay at home parents? Maybe something can be worked out with the Parents Associations to have them volunteer to sit with the children. A welcome respite from the daily grind.
Seriously BG9? I've been a 60 hour a week working parent, and I am currently a "stay at home parent", and I find your suggestion that I should volunteer as a lunch aide as a "respite from the daily grind" of my life both a little insulting and somewhat unrealistic for the following reasons:
1. Now that I'm at home, I'm already volunteering in the school regularly. I'm a class parent, I chaperone field trips, I volunteer in the library (a LOT, since not many other parents volunteered in my children's classes). When I worked for pay, I couldn't volunteer as much (although I did a decent amount), now I give back by doing a lot more, even without lunch duty.
2. I have plenty to do as a stay at home parent...when I left the workforce I took on many tasks that we used to pay other people to do (or that take longer to do the less expensive way), as well as the specific family needs that led us to the decision to try to get by on one income. I'm not just twiddling my thumbs wishing someone would volunteer me for something.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY....as a parent volunteer I would have no authority or training to deal with the real issues that come up in the lunchroom and adversely impact our children. Dealing with bullying, exclusion, bad behavior, noise and chaos, food line problems, etc., needs to be done in a way that reflects school policy, with consistency and fairness.
I doubt that having principals spending two hours a day in the lunchroom is an ideal long term solution (and, FWIW, I haven't seen the policy that supposedly tells them to do so, so don't know if this thread is accurate in its depiction of the situation). I do know that lunch issues are huge for many children, so I'm OK with the principals having to put real time into dealing with them until we come up with a better plan.
conandrob240 said:
such is the life of a top “executive”. That’s the way work is today. I am sure their hours are lessened over the summer and they have a lot more holidays than the average executive.
Why can’t teachers/ counselors/ administrators take a turn a few times a month in the cafeteria? If they work 20 days a month (high estimate) and there are 20 or 30 or more teachers, it would literally be once or twice a month.
Inevitable,..................the myth of "Time Off" for educators......so spoken like a true ignoramus. First read up on income inequality in the private sector, then review public teacher salaries, then read Nikole Hannah Jones research, then, if you have children or not in a school setting, volunteer several hours weekly for a minimum of a year.
reported January 23, 2018:
"Starting this year, publicly traded U.S. companies must calculate how their CEO’s compensation compares with the median pay of all employees. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act requires companies to disclose such pay ratios in regulatory filings. Prime Minister Theresa May is proposing similar disclosure rules for British bosses, even though remuneration for CEOs at large, publicly traded U.K. companies declined 17 percent in 2016. A German lawmaker in the European Parliament is also seeking to force banks in the EU to disclose a pay ratio. It’s all part of national efforts to tackle income inequality. A 2014 global survey showed people in many countries think pay gaps are smaller than they really are. U.S. respondents to the survey thought the ratio of CEO to average worker pay was 30-to-1. In reality, leaders of S&P 500 companies made about 347 times more than their employees in 2016, up from 41-to-1 in 1983, according to the AFL-CIO labor union. Pay for many Americans, meanwhile, has barely moved for decades. The Dodd-Frank law also requires companies to let shareholders approve or reject executive-pay policies. While these say-on-pay results aren’t binding, as they are in Switzerland, the vote itself has given investors a way to grab boards’ attention and publicly express discontent. Sometimes that prompts companies to change pay plans, since poor results can draw the attention of activist investors and embarrass directors. Still, a vast majority of corporations win these votes with flying colors."
When I retire, I plan to do a documentary following my esteemed colleagues from the public school sector. I wish to document them from the moment they open their eyes in the AM to the moment they close their eyes in the PM for a minimum 1 year, 24/7, 365 to dispel this myth about time off........ When my children were little, they railed against the work I brought home, complained about my evening and weekend hours. Now, they tell me they wish to be a teacher like me. I tell them sure, as long as you teach in a Scandinavian country where the school day, curriculum, and profession make sense. Personally, my dream is they pursue educational law to make sure integration, school funding, curriculum and standards make sense.
NikoleHannah-Jones4President said:Inevitable,..................the myth of "Time Off" for educators......so spoken like a true ignoramus.
I know you are new here so perhaps you don't realize that we try (and sometimes fail) to maintain at least the veil of civility. Calling someone that you just met an "ignoramus" is kind of uncool.
That said, welcome. I look forward to learning more about your perspective.
NikoleHannah-Jones4President said:reported January 23, 2018:
First read up on income inequality in the private sector, then review public teacher salaries, then read Nikole Hannah Jones research, then, if you have children or not in a school setting, volunteer several hours weekly for a minimum of a year.
"Starting this year, publicly traded U.S. companies must calculate how their CEO’s compensation compares with the median pay of all employees. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act requires companies to disclose such pay ratios in regulatory filings. Prime Minister Theresa May is proposing similar disclosure rules for British bosses, even though remuneration for CEOs at large, publicly traded U.K. companies declined 17 percent in 2016. A German lawmaker in the European Parliament is also seeking to force banks in the EU to disclose a pay ratio. It’s all part of national efforts to tackle income inequality. A 2014 global survey showed people in many countries think pay gaps are smaller than they really are. U.S. respondents to the survey thought the ratio of CEO to average worker pay was 30-to-1. In reality, leaders of S&P 500 companies made about 347 times more than their employees in 2016, up from 41-to-1 in 1983, according to the AFL-CIO labor union. Pay for many Americans, meanwhile, has barely moved for decades. The Dodd-Frank law also requires companies to let shareholders approve or reject executive-pay policies. While these say-on-pay results aren’t binding, as they are in Switzerland, the vote itself has given investors a way to grab boards’ attention and publicly express discontent. Sometimes that prompts companies to change pay plans, since poor results can draw the attention of activist investors and embarrass directors. Still, a vast majority of corporations win these votes with flying colors."
I have no idea what the Dodd Frank rule on CEO pay disclosures has to do with anything.
Very few CEOs in Maplewood and South Orange in comparison to regular folk.
I'm not sure what your point is, NikoleHannah-Jones4President.
Did you want to compare private versus public jobs? If so, please include health and retirement benefits in your comparison.
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^^ this exactly. Kids need to feel safe in the cafeteria, teachers need to eat at lunch as well. It’s the Principal’s responsibility to provide a safe environment. They can solve the crisis once and for all or they can supervise lunch. If I’m a busy Principal without 2 hours a Day to ‘waste’, guess what will be at the top of my agenda?