Reply to How does your DCPS or charter handle recess, lunch, other socializing, and schedule balance?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "How does your DCPS or charter handle recess, lunch, other socializing, and schedule balance?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]They should not be doing just 15 minutes, something is not right here.  I'd try lurking outside the school to see :-)

There are mandated time periods for each subject, so the whole day is built around getting the right amounts of that.  The specials teachers see each class in turn, they can't stay late with one group without shortchanging the next.

If the class seems rushed or behind schedule it might be that the teacher isn't managing routines and behavior well so they keep getting delayed.  Or there's some other scheduling issue like specials teachers running late, or not enough time planned for transitioning.  It can take a long time for a class of 1st graders to get their jackets on and walk to the playground, an experienced school administration will plan accordingly but an inexperienced one might not allow enough time and that throws the whole schedule out of whack.  A school's schedule is a real puzzle-- it has to work for all grades, all IEPs, all specials, to share a limited staff and a limited physical space in a limited amount of time.

It seems like you might still in an ECE mode of thinking about things.  In 1st it's time to grow up a little bit, do work that feels like work, learn to manage time, etc.  Not that there shouldn't also be joy and fun, but it's a different kind of thing than K, especially in the public system.  Parents sometimes want their kids to have tons of playtime, no pressure, lots of music and art, gardening, etc etc, but they also want solid academic performance in upper elementary.  And the foundation for that is solid academics in lower elementary.  Only the most skillful teachers at the best-organized school can deliver on both.  That's why you see parents praise their cozy, crunchy charter ECE program, then be really dissatisfied in upper elementary, then head to BASIS.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics