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These breaks seem incredibly important to me. My kids come home from school exhausted and stressed out. My kids have 4 minutes to get between classes, which ar

by jobu 12y ago

These breaks seem incredibly important to me. My kids come home from school exhausted and stressed out. My kids have 4 minutes to get between classes, which are sometimes on a different floor and several hundred yards apart. This means they have to carry their books all day long because they don't have time for lockers, and barely have time to visit a restroom. The teachers only give 3 bathroom passes a quarter, so if your kid has a nervous bladder and takes a bit of time to pee you have to get a doctor's note. For lunch they only have 20 minutes total - which includes standing in line for their food, eating lunch, and then more time standing in line to dump their trays. If they're late to the following class then they get a tardy slip and detention after school on Friday. The current schedule for schools in the US has more in common with prisons than any real workplace environment.

walterbell 12y ago
Yikes, is this policy set by school districts or states? Is any input accepted from parents?
- jobu 12y ago
  Seems to be pretty consistent for public schools, but the current school district is the worst so far. The last one (in another state) was 5 minutes between classes instead of 4 minutes, and 30 minutes for lunch instead of 20. Parent input does have some effect - the lunch time at the previous school had been 20 minutes as well, but parents complained because the kids needed more time to eat the new healthier lunches. (It takes longer to chew fresh produce than canned.) The school's argument against longer breaks between classes has been that more time leads to more drama and problems in the hallways, and there isn't enough staff to monitor all of them.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    > It takes longer to chew fresh produce than canned That's a 50% improvement in time for unscripted mindful awareness, thanks to the physics of chewing fresh produce. Parents need a centralized site where "winning arguments" are aggregated, to improve the liquidity of decentralized debate with bureacracy.

by jobu 12y ago

walterbell 12y ago

Yikes, is this policy set by school districts or states? Is any input accepted from parents?

jobu 12y ago
Seems to be pretty consistent for public schools, but the current school district is the worst so far. The last one (in another state) was 5 minutes between classes instead of 4 minutes, and 30 minutes for lunch instead of 20. Parent input does have some effect - the lunch time at the previous school had been 20 minutes as well, but parents complained because the kids needed more time to eat the new healthier lunches. (It takes longer to chew fresh produce than canned.) The school's argument against longer breaks between classes has been that more time leads to more drama and problems in the hallways, and there isn't enough staff to monitor all of them.
- walterbell 12y ago
  > It takes longer to chew fresh produce than canned That's a 50% improvement in time for unscripted mindful awareness, thanks to the physics of chewing fresh produce. Parents need a centralized site where "winning arguments" are aggregated, to improve the liquidity of decentralized debate with bureacracy.