Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Student Life topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Parent urges restoration of student social time after Memorial lunch restructuring
Summary
A parent at the workshop said Memorial students lost recess and social time under a new lunch schedule; Superintendent Pillari replied eating time remains 22 minutes and remaining time will be used for the WIN academic program.
At the Oct. 7 workshop, Maria Billson of 43 Rockland Ave. told the board she was "upset with the restructuring of lunch at Memorial," saying she believes it is wrong that students "do not get to have a recess and that they are not permitted to talk during lunch." Billson said the change removes the only time students have to socialize and criticized the student council election process this year.
Superintendent Michele Pillari responded that "by law, grades 6-8 are not required to have recess" and that the district is using the non-eating portion of the lunch period for the WIN academic program; "Eating time is still 22 minutes," she said. Karen Criscione, who supervises 6th-grade lunch duty, described how the first two weeks used homeroom seating, then shifted to flex seating with consequences or assigned seating for repeated misbehavior.
