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Thursday Thoughts
October 2, 2008
Carlton Rider, Principal |
During the past few days I have been keeping
an eye on the cafeteria and the condition of
the tables and floor after the sixth,
seventh, and eighth graders have eaten their
lunch. On some days it was hard to determine
if animals or humans had used the area to
eat their lunch. It was that bad. Uneaten
food, crushed on the table, paper torn and
thrown across the tables, juice and milk on
the floor, and I could go on. You may ask,
“Where is the supervision?” Well, good
question. There are three teachers assigned
to middle school lunch duty each day. That’s
three teachers supervising nearly 200
students. When I took a good look at the
situation, I found that it’s not the fault
of the kindergarten through fifth graders
who eat before the middle school students
because they leave their areas clean before
they leave for recess. The problem isn’t
with their upbringing. I’m sure that you
wouldn’t allow your children to leave a mess
on the table or floor at home after eating.
I think that part of the problem is that
they are eating with their peers in a fairly
relaxed environment and you know what can
happen when that happens. I think another
part of the problem is that when the middle
school students finish eating and are
supposed to take their trays back to the
cafeteria area to be washed or their brown
bags thrown away in the trash can they move
away from the table they were sitting at and
leave a mess that is hard to track since
they may move to other tables. It’s at that
time, when a lot of students are moving
around and tracking certain students becomes
difficult, that things begin to go down
hill. It’s at that time that you have
students going to the restrooms, gathering
in small groups in conservation, getting in
line for extras, or just sitting at the
table making conversation or maybe a mess.
Except for sitting at the table making a
mess, I feel that students do need time to
converse with their classmates. It’s the
only “downtime” that our students have to
mingle with their friends during the school
day but some simply don’t use the time in a
positive manner and leave a mess for those
assigned to daily table and floor cleaning.
You can imagine what those students must
think who are assigned to clean up the
tables and sweep the floor. From the
beginning of the year, at an assembly of all
those in grades K – 8, the second day of
school, I have pointed out the importance of
both eating all the food they have for lunch
and of cleaning up the area that they sit in
after they have eaten. I reminded them that
their parents don’t allow such behavior and
we wouldn’t either. So much for talk!
This past Monday a section of the eighth grade
tables was trashed and the floor was a mess.
Of course nobody admitted to making the mess
or even knowing who might be responsible for
the messy area. Long story short, the eighth
grade now sits in alphabetical order
according to homerooms. Fair! Probably not,
especially for those who were in no way
responsible for making the mess. Effective.
Yes! With the edict of sitting in homerooms
and in alphabetical order I now have a few
names of suspects to interview that were
given to me by a number of students sick and
tired of the immature behavior of a few.
Will the eighth grade be allowed to sit
where they want in the
not-too-distant-future? Probably. But more
importantly, we have a lot of good
leadership in the eighth grade and in the
other grades as well. I am asking that
leadership to step up and work with us in
addressing issues such as this. This is the
intent of our Student Advisory Council,
composed of six representatives, two from
each grade level in grades 6 – 8, who will
be meeting with me on a regular basis in the
coming weeks. Students are stakeholders in
our school, just as our parents, and I feel
that it is important to listen to their
concerns and likewise try to direct them to
working on various service-oriented projects
where we can put the Corporal Works of Mercy
into practice. I have found that the first
concern of the representatives is “Can we
have more dances?” I didn’t know that having
dances had anything to do with the Corporal
Works of Mercy!
I might mention that the issues we have in
the cafeteria during the middle school
period are not the same issues that we have
with the other grade levels. For the most
part these students clean up their areas
when finished and their chief concern is
going out to recess and playing on the
equipment in the park. Cleaning up their
areas plays a big part in them going out to
recess on time.
Speaking of recess, I would like to thank
Susan Rose for scheduling parents to take
our middle school students outside during
lunch period. Since time and space are
limited at this time, we rotate our sixth,
seventh, and eighth grades so they have an
opportunity to go outside for about 15
minutes during lunch period. Thanks also to
the parents who volunteer their time to take
them outside. I appreciate your willingness
to help us during this time period and with
this age group!
I realize that not everybody has access to a
computer at home or perhaps don’t take the
time to look on our website for information
on a regular basis. With that in mind, we
will be sending home the monthly activity
calendar and cafeteria menu in the Thursday
folder at the beginning of each month and
other important information. I still
encourage you to take a look at our website
on a regular basis in order to stay tuned to
what is going on at our school.
All of the information you gave us has been
put into our National School Alert system.
Thank you for sharing your information with
us. The only problem is we don’t know if it
works until we have to use it. Let’s hope we
don’t have to use it!
A reminder – Terra Nova Achievement Testing
begins on Monday, October 20th and continues
through Friday, October 24th for grades 2 –
8. These are important tests and I ask that
you make every effort to ensure that your
child attends school each day that week.
There will be no Thursday folder going home
on October 9th but you can still read my
Thursday Thoughts on our website.
Previous Messages:
September 25, 2008
September 18, 2008
September 11, 2008
September 4, 2008
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