Let's Talk About Lunch!
Lunch- If you ask just about any middle or high school student he/she would probably tell you that lunch was his/her favorite part of the day! Right? What about if you asked any elementary school teacher? I grew up in Ohio and our elementary school teachers didn't eat lunch in the cafeteria. They ate in the teacher's lounge and our PE teacher did lunch duty each day. When I student taught, the teachers rotated so they took turns having lunch duty and even then we weren't there the entire time. In fact we still had time to go to a teacher's lounge and eat lunch.
So, you can imagine my disbelief when I moved to NC, eight years ago, and was told we would eat in the cafeteria and have recess duty EVERY day! WHAT?? I couldn't believe it. Thankfully, the school I am at right now does allow us to have duty free lunch two days a week. Unfortunately, we still have to scarf down our lunches and if you have duty free lunch you end up eating in your classroom! My biggest complaint is that we don't have time to talk to the other teachers on our grade level.
Thankfully, our school does let us have working lunches once a month. These are a time where we have parents and our assistants take the students to lunch and then read with them, before dropping them off at their special area class. This gives us about an hour and a half to have our grade level PLC meeting, instead of our typical 45 minutes, and we can eat lunch together! We usually order food to be delivered, which makes it even more exciting, since that is not something we can typically do! Yay for pizzas and salads! Today was our working lunch for April.
So here is my question for you: Do you eat lunch with your students in the cafeteria? If so, how long is your lunch time? Our lunch is only 20 minutes. If you don't eat with your students, who monitors them in the cafeteria? I would love to know how other schools manage lunchtime!
-Michelle
Thankfully, our school does let us have working lunches once a month. These are a time where we have parents and our assistants take the students to lunch and then read with them, before dropping them off at their special area class. This gives us about an hour and a half to have our grade level PLC meeting, instead of our typical 45 minutes, and we can eat lunch together! We usually order food to be delivered, which makes it even more exciting, since that is not something we can typically do! Yay for pizzas and salads! Today was our working lunch for April.
So here is my question for you: Do you eat lunch with your students in the cafeteria? If so, how long is your lunch time? Our lunch is only 20 minutes. If you don't eat with your students, who monitors them in the cafeteria? I would love to know how other schools manage lunchtime!
-Michelle
I eat a 20 minute lunch with my first graders in the cafeteria everyday as well. The working lunch sounds nice! I really wish we had either lunch and/or recess off. It can call for a very long day when there are zero breaks! I wish I had something positive to add but I'm with you on this one!
ReplyDeleteThe working lunch is nice! I only wish we could do them more often!
DeleteI'm grew up in Ohio and student taught in Ohio and in both cases, teachers had duty free lunch and recess, which meant about an hour of free time everyday.
ReplyDeleteI moved to NC 10 years ago and I was shocked as well. We are fortunate to have duty free lunch because we have a couple of lunch monitors, but my grade level stays in the cafeteria because of time constraints. Twenty five minutes from the time our kids enter until the time they leave the cafeteria isn't much time to hi back to the classroom, so we just sit together at the back of the cafeteria. At least I get some adult conversation.
Katrina
Teacher of Scholars
Oh how I wish we had lunch monitors! You are right though, I even with that the time is so short.
DeleteI am in Illinois and I can't speak for all schools here but in my district we get a 30 minute duty free lunch every day, but we don't have specialists every day either. On Wednesdays I don't have any breaks at all except for lunch. I know where I grew up about an hour and a half away the teachers also had a duty free lunch but not sure how long it was.
ReplyDeleteWe have lunch aides who serve lunch, monitor the students, and do recess duty for lunch recess.
Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten
We used to have a day without specials, but now our county requires some form of planning time daily. On the day without a break our assistants are required to do something. With our students.
DeleteThere are probably positives and negatives with this issue everywhere, but it is one that I have never quite gotten used to! :)
Wow! We are lucky NC teachers! We have a 30 min lunch break. Our TA's do lunch duty and we share a TA, so she takes our kiddos to lunch and brings them back to the classroom. She really spoils us by giving us our whole lunch break time! Sorry to hear about your lunch woes....it is really unfair that teachers can't get a free lunch break :(
ReplyDeleteTamra and Sarah
First Grade Buddies
I teach high school and I have my lunch break in the teacher's room. Occasionally I will have lunch in my class if my students want to come back early or just eat lunch in the room. Admin, support staff, and teachers who have planning during lunch block are assigned a lunch shift to cover.
ReplyDelete