Anonymous
08/30/2015 21:11
Subject: Re:Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Please check your school's lunch and recess schedules and follow up with the school if the guideline has not been implemented correctly. Each student's school day was extended by 10 minutes, so each of them should get additional 10 minutes of lunch/recess as per the guideline.
Anonymous
08/30/2015 08:51
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Yes the memo was very clear in the guidelines - it must be ten additional minutes each day in which MCEA members (teachers) cannot be responsible for overseeing. Most schools are extending lunch and/or recess and a few are doing the ten minute "brain break" option. Using paraeducators to give every teacher's class a ten-minute break (on top of covering hours of lunch/recess) is a great use of human resources when they could be pulling intervention groups instead. I really don't know what MCPS was thinking with this nightmare they created to appease a small group of parents.
Anonymous
08/30/2015 07:54
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:But the teachers will not always go over that brain break, guaranteed. Our class was always late for lunch when I volunteered. I don't agree with the brain break unless the teacher is physically taking them outside to run around for 10 minutes which we all know will never happen
It's not the teacher who will do the brain break. Their union wouldn't allow that without paying them an addition ten minutes. It will be lunch/recess aides.
Anonymous
08/30/2015 07:12
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:Well for all the replies, it sounds like one thing is certain. MCPS is showing its typical colors of never knowing what is going on.
I don't know where you got that from. As far as I can tell, the confusion is among DCUM posters, not MCPS.
Anonymous
08/30/2015 02:51
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
But the teachers will not always go over that brain break, guaranteed. Our class was always late for lunch when I volunteered. I don't agree with the brain break unless the teacher is physically taking them outside to run around for 10 minutes which we all know will never happen
Anonymous
08/29/2015 21:53
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Ah, thanks pp, our school has the same one hour lunch/recess block, and I was wondering where the extra time had gone, but I did see that the classroom teacher had a 10 minute break embedded in the schedule every day at 2:35.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 20:11
Subject: Re:Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The additional 10 minutes is being added to lunch/recess in all elementary schools. No school is adding 10 more minutes of instructional time.
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?page=showrelease&id=3702
According to our ES Principal in May (at the PTA meeting), the memo she got from BOE said the 10 minutes was only to be added to lunch. The school has 6 lunch/recess periods, so the struggle on how to add 10 minutes to lunch only (not recess) was becoming an issue. We already started at 11 AM for the first lunch group and 1:30 PM for the last lunch group.
I said that the vote said "Lunch and Recess" but she again said the official direction from BOE was lunch only. I believe her. I also don't think BOE seriously considered how this 10 minutes would impact a school with more than 4 lunch/recess periods. (From watching the discussion, they clearly didn't take it into account. They were more concerned with a "no cost" option.)
Anyway, we are done with ES now (hooray), and I haven't heard from anyone at the school to see what the lunch/recess periods will be.
Well, your "ES principal" was not being honest or she isn't a very good reader. I got the same memo. It was 10 minutes to either lunch or recess, a combination of the two or a 10 minute "brain break" that is essentially a short extra recess.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 18:53
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Well for all the replies, it sounds like one thing is certain. MCPS is showing its typical colors of never knowing what is going on.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 18:43
Subject: Re:Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:The additional 10 minutes is being added to lunch/recess in all elementary schools. No school is adding 10 more minutes of instructional time.
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?page=showrelease&id=3702
According to our ES Principal in May (at the PTA meeting), the memo she got from BOE said the 10 minutes was only to be added to lunch. The school has 6 lunch/recess periods, so the struggle on how to add 10 minutes to lunch only (not recess) was becoming an issue. We already started at 11 AM for the first lunch group and 1:30 PM for the last lunch group.
I said that the vote said "Lunch and Recess" but she again said the official direction from BOE was lunch only. I believe her. I also don't think BOE seriously considered how this 10 minutes would impact a school with more than 4 lunch/recess periods. (From watching the discussion, they clearly didn't take it into account. They were more concerned with a "no cost" option.)
Anyway, we are done with ES now (hooray), and I haven't heard from anyone at the school to see what the lunch/recess periods will be.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 18:40
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Our school has a 1 hour block for lunch and recess.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 18:37
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:The schools that only added 5 mins might have double lunch sessions - so they added 5 mins to each.
"5 minutes to each" is still 10 minutes total, right?
Anonymous
08/29/2015 14:54
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:I heard only lunch is being extended. Probably something about recess aid costs so recess couldn't be extended?
Lunch/recess aides are one and the same.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 10:34
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
Anonymous wrote:My son will now have 2 20-minute recess periods, instead of 1 30-minute period. I think the net result will be LESS outside/running/playing/free time for him, since the "line up, be quiet, no touching, now we wait" portions will have to be done twice. But, I have come to expect no more from MCPS.
I'm sure you meant to say you have come to expect no more from your school - not MCPS.
Your school was the one who decided to have 2 20 minute recesses. Other schools opted for a 40 minute recess. Other schools may be doing something completely different.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 09:26
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
My son will now have 2 20-minute recess periods, instead of 1 30-minute period. I think the net result will be LESS outside/running/playing/free time for him, since the "line up, be quiet, no touching, now we wait" portions will have to be done twice. But, I have come to expect no more from MCPS.
Anonymous
08/29/2015 08:46
Subject: Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
The schools that only added 5 mins might have double lunch sessions - so they added 5 mins to each.