Middle School Recess coming to FCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will sit around on their phones at "recess". I'm not against breaks, but study hall would be more useful to them by middle school. Also, maybe FCPS can make it easier for students to partake of sports teams at school. Lower the barrier to entry, allow walks ons to the teams. I know of many students who would like to play a team sport at school, but it is hard to compete against the kids are already on travel team$, etc. for a spot. I don't think recess is the problem here.

There are no sports in FCPS middle schools? They did away with them a few years ago.

-There has never been sports in MS. And 15 minutes is not going to bring MS sports to FCPS. The MS Afterschool Program is working on this issue. A few schools informally started playing each other. Honestly though, this isnt going to solve the issue for HS…you arent making the HS Boys Soccer team if you are just playing middle school soccer w/ the after school program.

-To answer another poster, we are not allowed to confiscate phones.

-Also, the new reg specifically says the kids have to go outside unless there is inclimate weather, so I assume the schools that are currently letting kids roam inside the building will no longer be able to do that.

-My school actually has a lot of field space, but it only has one small blacktop. The blacktop is how PE classes access the fields, so there is constant mixing of kids on break w/ kids in class. It causes some headaches for the PE teachers (especially now that there are no required PR uniforms to easily identify break kids vs. PE kids). If PE is using the fields, we have the small blacktop for use, a small interior courtyard, and a small patch of grass at the front of the school. It requires a lot of teachers to monitor, unlike a fenced in playground at an ES.

Maybe the MS schools will need to redesign their outdoor spaces but it can be done.

They won’t money in that. It’s not a priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will sit around on their phones at "recess". I'm not against breaks, but study hall would be more useful to them by middle school. Also, maybe FCPS can make it easier for students to partake of sports teams at school. Lower the barrier to entry, allow walks ons to the teams. I know of many students who would like to play a team sport at school, but it is hard to compete against the kids are already on travel team$, etc. for a spot. I don't think recess is the problem here.

Not true. I teach 6th grade and the kids play. They will be in 7th grade in the fall and would love to be outside to throw a ball or chill.

Having taught MS and ES, 7th graders will follow the lead of other students. If the majority of kids don’t play, the kids in your class probably won’t either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm having a hard time understand why ppl don't want the kids to just have recess? What could possibly be bad about that?

Same. What are you afraid will happen if kids get 15 minutes of unstructured time?

Bullying.

Yep. At worst it’s bullying and at best they will be standing around staring at their phones.

Signed,
Middle school psychologist

And no doubt looking at porn on their phones.

Kids can look at porn any time. That's no reason to not have recess.

Oh yeah! 15 more minutes of porn, awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will sit around on their phones at "recess". I'm not against breaks, but study hall would be more useful to them by middle school. Also, maybe FCPS can make it easier for students to partake of sports teams at school. Lower the barrier to entry, allow walks ons to the teams. I know of many students who would like to play a team sport at school, but it is hard to compete against the kids are already on travel team$, etc. for a spot. I don't think recess is the problem here.

There are no sports in FCPS middle schools? They did away with them a few years ago.

-There has never been sports in MS. And 15 minutes is not going to bring MS sports to FCPS. The MS Afterschool Program is working on this issue. A few schools informally started playing each other. Honestly though, this isnt going to solve the issue for HS…you arent making the HS Boys Soccer team if you are just playing middle school soccer w/ the after school program.

-To answer another poster, we are not allowed to confiscate phones.

-Also, the new reg specifically says the kids have to go outside unless there is inclimate weather, so I assume the schools that are currently letting kids roam inside the building will no longer be able to do that.

-My school actually has a lot of field space, but it only has one small blacktop. The blacktop is how PE classes access the fields, so there is constant mixing of kids on break w/ kids in class. It causes some headaches for the PE teachers (especially now that there are no required PR uniforms to easily identify break kids vs. PE kids). If PE is using the fields, we have the small blacktop for use, a small interior courtyard, and a small patch of grass at the front of the school. It requires a lot of teachers to monitor, unlike a fenced in playground at an ES.

Maybe the MS schools will need to redesign their outdoor spaces but it can be done.

They won’t money in that. It’s not a priority.

Even if it was a priority, playground equipment is expensive. Would it be cool to have a climbing parkor style play space for every middle school? Sure. Part of the difference in managing recess in ES vs. MS is student scheduling. In ES, each grade level of like 130 students max can be scheduled throughout the whole school day to go outside. In MS, kids switch classes in all different configurations. The whole school has to rotate through outside in a matter of one block of 90 minutes. And it is highly disruptive to have masses of middle schoolers going in and going out to recess at the same time. So you have to find enough space for a huge swath of students at one time. And supervising large numbers of middle schoolers in one space doing stupid things requires a lot of staff manpower, so it is hard to accomplish during lunches when admin and counselors are already spread thin supervising the cafeteria.

[Anonymous]

The kiddies can use a break because well they go to Fcking Corrupt Piece of Shit. Enough said.