Rosemary Hills or Private?

[Anonymous]

My neighbors have said that many parents volunteer during lunch and recess because it does feel like Lord of the Flies. Everyone seems to make the same reference, which makes me nervous!

For parents who have volunteered at lunch and recess in the last two years, do you feel like your kids safety or comfort is at risk during lunch and recess because of the chaos? Or did you feel fine with it? How many adults are on the playground at a time?

Thanks for any info!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbors have said that many parents volunteer during lunch and recess because it does feel like Lord of the Flies. Everyone seems to make the same reference, which makes me nervous!

For parents who have volunteered at lunch and recess in the last two years, do you feel like your kids safety or comfort is at risk during lunch and recess because of the chaos? Or did you feel fine with it? How many adults are on the playground at a time?

Thanks for any info!

Ok, my kids are BCC students now so our experience isn’t from the last two years, but I volunteered regularly at RH and it sounds like it’s mostly the same. Yes, I would describe it as Lord of the Flies. At the time I was a little uncomfortable about the number and vibe of the paras supervising recess. But some of my kids’ very best friends and social relationships formed at lunch and recess at Rosemary Hills and are still going strong to this day. I think that hands off free play environment where kids look out for each other was actually really good for them socially and developmentally now that I have the perspective from the other side.

[Anonymous]

We decided against RHPS because of a lot of these same worries - especially around lunch and recess. Our kids went to a well regarded K-12 in the area and had a very nice elementary school experience. That said, I think we made the wrong choice. Our kids never had neighborhood friends and even now as high schoolers the same is true. If I could do it again, I’d either do RHPS and either stay in MCPS or move to private for middle/high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbors have said that many parents volunteer during lunch and recess because it does feel like Lord of the Flies. Everyone seems to make the same reference, which makes me nervous!

For parents who have volunteered at lunch and recess in the last two years, do you feel like your kids safety or comfort is at risk during lunch and recess because of the chaos? Or did you feel fine with it? How many adults are on the playground at a time?

Thanks for any info!

I volunteer at lunch/recess and kids are definitely safe. Usually there are 2 or 3 other people volunteering, along with the recess aids. There is definitely a lot going on, but I would not say it's Lord of the Flies. My kid loves recess and has met lots of kids from outside his class through it each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My neighbors have said that many parents volunteer during lunch and recess because it does feel like Lord of the Flies. Everyone seems to make the same reference, which makes me nervous!

For parents who have volunteered at lunch and recess in the last two years, do you feel like your kids safety or comfort is at risk during lunch and recess because of the chaos? Or did you feel fine with it? How many adults are on the playground at a time?

Thanks for any info!

I volunteer. It’s hard not to once you’ve seen what goes on. There is very little supervision on the playground and they added an aide who is on her phone and does very little other than scare the kids.
RHES is desperate for help on playgrounds. On an average day there are 1-2 parents but it’s not nearly enough.
It’s not a bad group of kids but some have special needs and there just isn’t enough support. Kids get hurt or need help navigating disagreements.

Lunch is insanely loud. Lunch aides generally seem to try but it’s total chaos.
Many kids feel overwhelmed.

One of the biggest issues in my opinion is kids getting lunch too late to eat much (especially since they are kids and slow eaters).

[Anonymous]

PP here. I should add that the staff - especially teachers at RHES are very good. I have been impressed with what I see in class.

[Anonymous]

I would say the chaos level is relatively high but I never saw a kid actually get hurt so I wouldn’t avoid it out of safety concerns.

Because there are so many classes out there the pool of parents who are potential volunteers is much bigger so it’s not hard to get multiple parents to volunteer each day. The level of parental involvement is one of the things we really liked about RHPS.

[Anonymous]

This is true at all or almost all of the ES, based on what parent volunteers, paraeds, teachers and school admin say at other elementary schools.