And they keep saying that school is good for building social skills
Father questions policy on talking in lunch line
The Carmichaels School District has taken the ‘Silence is Golden’ adage to a new level. They now forbid elementary school students from talking in the lunch line.
The Carmichaels board of directors heard from Carmichaels resident Victor Frye about improvements that could be made to speed up the time it takes for students to be served in the grade school cafeteria.
Frye noted that his daughter, who is in third grade, and other elementary school students, are not permitted to talk in the lunch line until all children are served, which takes a good portion of the lunch period. If children do talk in the lunch line, he said, they have to sit at the “bad table,” which takes one minute off the 10 minutes the students are allowed to talk.
The no-talking rule is being enforced so kids will eat more of their food. By preventing the students who have been served and seated from talking they will concentrate on the only thing available - their lunches.
Elementary Principal Craig Baily said the procedure to not talk until every student has been served was put in the place the second or third week of the 2004-05 school year to alleviate a problem of students wasting their food because they were talking instead of eating.
“It has worked extremely well,” Baily said of the procedure. “It has really helped with the efficiency of the students and how they eat their lunch.
I don’t see how forbidding students from talking in line helps anything. The only thing preventing them from eating is the fact that they haven’t been given food yet. Get them their food faster and they’ll have more time to eat. It takes about 15 minutes to get all of the kids served. The last ones to get their food then have 10 minutes to eat it. Perhaps making the lunch period long enough for all of the students to be served and seated and to eat their food without wolfing it down would be as effective as a talking ban. I’m sure it would be more healthy.
(Tip credit to Tori in Texas)
A new assistant principal tried to institute a “silent lunch” at my daughter’s school last year. She used the (utterly bogus) reasoning that “the children might choke on their food if they talk during lunch.”
After many parent complaints, she modified it to “quiet lunch”–no yelling or running in the lunchroom. A much more reasonable policy.
My son had lunch at 10:30 in 1st grade. But I think it’s fund rasing, which is a frequent use of policy and zero tolerance rules.
Frye suggested to put in more cash registers to speed up the time children are served their lunch and the amount of time they can talk, but a few members of the board who spoke up about the suggestion were opposed to the idea.
“Everything is on hold until we can get straightened with our fiscal situation,” district Business Manager Vincent Belczyk said.
Uh… I’m not a father (yet), and maybe this is totally out of line, but if a kid is hungry, won’t he just eat during lunch?
If the children are too busy talking to eat, then perhaps they aren’t that hungry.
Given the propensity toward obesity in our society, one might think that TRYING to get the kids to eat more might be not such a good idea.
Note: The whole ‘my kid eats too much at home becuase he doesn’t eat in school’ argument doesn’t wash. Parents can be responsible enought to teach their children to eat at school. Heck, if you take away the after-school snacks which replace the school meal for kids, I bet they’d eat.
I don’t want to hear anymore “educrats” say that homeschooling hinders the social development of children.
Lunch is really the only time kids have to socialize. I’ve even heard of schools forbidding kids to talk on school busses.
One enlightened school official tried to introduce “silent lunch” in a district in my state, and the only way it was defeated was because a bunch of parents went to the press and told them their children were unhappy about it and that some parents were not going to return their children to the school next year.
Public schools today are more like day prisons.
This may stray a little from the topic, but it’s strange to me that kids are waiting in line 15 minutes or more for food. When I was going to school I always brought my lunch and so did my friends. Once in awhile we’d buy the school lunch, but nowadays it seems like that’s all the kids do is eat the school lunch, like the parents can’t be bothered to prepare a healthful (and I daresay less expensive) lunch for their children.
If they’re waiting in line for 15 minutes or more, it sounds like they don’t have time to talk after they get their food, because the lunch-period will soon be over.
There are quite a few factors involved in the rising use of school cafeteria food. The convenience factor for parents is one of them. So are lower prices for cafeteria food, expanded meal assistance and voucher programs. Another big factor is the elimination of school lockers and rules against backpacks or other means of keeping a bag lunch until lunchtime.
Actually some schools don’t allow bag lunches (they might smuggle in something). My son bought a soda in the school caft, walked out on the patio and wasn’t allowed to bring the soda back in again because it had off-campus cooties.
Wowee, sounds alot like Basic training in the Army… “no talking in the DFAC (dining facility)… no talking in the chow line” was what they made anyone who talked chant… they’d pull them out and make them skip the meal and chant that phrase for half an hour.
I’d like to see a tableful of students sit down and say grace aloud together before eating, and the school try to punish them. That would get certain organizations and their lawyers involved.
RE: banning bag lunches - seems like somebody should at least raise the issue that it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of antitrust laws.
Not to mention, again, what happens if a kid wants to keep stict Kosher? That could be another fun 1st Amendment brouhaha.
I would just like to offer what my kids elementary school does durning lunch time. The luch times are staggered: one class goes at 11:55, next at 12 next at 12:05 well you get it. Then each class leaves the lunchroom (again staggered) after the 30 minute lunch period. This way there has not been a long wait for the children to be served. This puts less pressure on the students and the volunteers who serve the lunches. It also makes for easier clean up at the end of the lunch periods because you are not getting a million trays thrown at you to be washed at one time. This way everyone does a better job. The children also have time to enjoy their luches and their friends.
I dont think it is right for u too take the right away from kids to talk their just kids they like to have fun and not worry about anything and they like to talk to each other thats how they make friends and if they dont talk to anyone then they wont be able to make friends because im sure they cant talk in class so what there only time to talk is during recess when they would rather be having fun playing kickball then worrying about anything else the rule is not right besides kids or not there americans and they have the right to free speech dont they so let them talk.