Recess Temperature Reminder
As we have entered the spring weather season, we want to remind our students about what they need to wear during outdoor recess. Anytime the temperature dips below 50ºF, students MUST wear a jacket (of some type) outside. Students that choose to wear shorts will not be permitted outside for recess if the temperature is below 50ºF. It is a family decision, but we would suggest that students not wear shorts on days when temperatures are forecasted to be below 50ºF. If the thermometer dips even lower (let's hope it doesn't), students should be prepared to wear hats and gloves during outside recess. We typically check AccuWeather and The Weather Channel apps for the current local temperature at approximately 11:55 am.
What about girls wearing skirts or dresses? Are they denied recess, as well?
Are girls allowed to wear skirts and dresses throughout the year? Must girls wear long pants during the winter? Is there outside recess in the fall and winter? I'm just trying to understand the rules. I never experienced this when my kids were in school.
I also see why parents are starting to opt out of PSSA testing. Talk about high stakes testing!
PSSA Testing Information The 2015 PSSA testing window continues this week. Our students in Grades 3-5 will take the PSSA MATH tests on April 20-22, 2015. Grade 4 students will complete the PSSA SCIENCE tests on April 28- 29, 2015. Please understand that during the testing window, preapproved absences will not be granted for students in Grades 3-5.
Though we have been exceedingly diligent with our instruction and interventions since school started, and we are confident in our students' abilities, these tests still bring a heightened level of anxiety to everyone. Teachers are anxious for students to do their best. Students are worried that the tests will be too hard. Administration is anxious that we will not do as well as we have in the past. All of this anxiety is certainly understandable, but more importantly, it can be minimized. Here are some easy ways you can help us to be at our best during the PSSA test window:
- Be sure your student(s) get a good night's sleep.
- Insist on a good breakfast before school.
- Send your student(s) off to school on time.
What easy ways are recommended for teachers and Administration to minimize anxiety?
- Instill a sense of confidence and a desire for your student(s) to do their best no matter how hard the tests may be. Let them know how proud you are of their abilities and their effort.
30 comments:
Mt Lebanon Elementary Handbook
http://www.mtlsd.org/jefferson_elementary/stuff/mt%20leb%20elemhandbook-2013.pdf
DRESS CODE
Students should be dressed in an appropriate and acceptable manner in terms of modesty, safety, and personal hygiene as appropriate for instructional activities. A student’s dress should not interfere with the learning process or create danger to the student’s safety. It is important for students to be appropriately dressed according to the weather.
RECESS
Recess is an opportunity for students to interact with their peers. Recess may occur in or outdoors. Students need to dress appropriately for recess.
To answer your last question, Elaine, depression, alcoholism, and divorce have always run rampant in the teaching profession.
The de-professionalizing high-stakes testing obsession has only exacerbated these conditions. That is why we are losing many of our best teachers at an accelerated pace -- they 'opt out' for their own well-being.
I do not think messages like the one the school sent helps... why do we only care if the kids eat a good breakfast during PSSA time? Seems a little self-serving and manipulative to me. You should care about the well-being of kids and teachers ALL the time.
- Jason M.
Mt Lebanon Wellness Policy, as required by participation in federal lunch program:
http://www.mtlsd.org/foodservices/stuff/jljschoolwellness.pdf
Physical Activity
Physical activity is a key component of a healthy lifestyle. The District shall strive to provide opportunities for developmentally appropriate physical activity during the school day for all students.
• Schools should contribute to providing children the opportunity to accumulate at least sixty (60) minutes of age-appropriate physical activity on most days of the week. The sixty minutes include physical activity outside of the school environment, such as outdoor play at home, sports, etc.
• Age appropriate physical activity opportunities, such as regular instructional physical education, co-curricular activities, interscholastic athletics, physical activity clubs, supervised unstructured recess, etc., shall be provided.
• Extended periods of student inactivity (2 or more hours) are discouraged.
• **Recess will not be denied for disciplinary reasons, although discipline may be imposed
for misconduct during recess**.
Curious, once the artificial turf is completed will the Lincoln youth be restricted from playing or practicing youth soccer in shorts if the temperature falls below 50°?
What if your youngster goes to school wearing those form fitting yoga pants like Lululemons? Is that considered proper attire?
Just wondering.
Nick M.
7:53 PM, is the 50 degree rule District wide?
Elaine
The elem handbook applies to all of the schools but apparently each school may determine their own thresholds for when to intervene. Has anyone ever heard of a child suffering from frostbite or hypothermia due to his/her attire during recess? Has this ever occurred, maybe once... somewhere, anywhere?
Would keeping a pair of sweatpants in their lockers be beneficial?
Do children remain inside if the temperature outside is below 50 degrees in the event of a fire drill?
11:06 PM, I don't think there would be a fire drill if it is too cold outside.
When my son was in 8th grade, he decided at the beginning of the school year that he was going to wear shorts the entire school year. He did it and survived. I guess I was a bad mom.
Elaine
10:59 pm
I just don't see how learning is incorporated into this recess policy. How do children learn to dress appropriately for recess if they aren't given the chance (especially the kids in the upper grades)? Fifth grade is the last year of recess (at lunch time) for children in Mt Lebanon.
Also, if kids can be punished for wearing shorts by staying indoors during recess (against school wellness policy), why can't kids that get cold go inside without being punished? Wouldn't that trial and error learning be a more positive and growth oriented experience for the child?
Couldn't the teacher just state, "I'm worried you will be cold in those shorts. Are you cold?" To which the child is most likely to respond in his/her head, "Well, can't you see I am carrying this football sprinting out to the field, completely excited that I am finished with my PSSAs for the day and the temperature of my legs is not something I care to consider right now. My friends are waiting!".
But in actuality, the child is more likely to say out loud, fearfully, "I'm fine".
Then also, as far as decision making goes, why can kids purchase food independently after school for fundraisers but earlier in the same day, they are not permitted to decide whether or not they are comfortable in short sleeves or shorts during recess?
Taken together, these practices are unhealthy, obesogenic, and with respect to recess, unnecessarily authoritarian -- especially at 50 degrees.
Next they'll be enforcing the fashion rule not to wear white after Labor Day.
Curious...what is your source for citing depression, alcoholism...among teachers.? How do those numbers compare with other professions and society at large.
7:58 AM, about your comment: Jason M.'s portion of your comment was grayed out. I have seen this happen before. It never prints when the comment is published. How did you enter Jason's quote? I'm trying to figure out what is going on.
Elaine
Lots of potential citations for you to follow up on below - if you are interested ... - Jason M.
1. Beginning teachers’ self-efficacy, depression and retention
Beginning teachers – and indeed teachers in general – are expected to experience positive emotions when doing their work, to be and to feel effective in their teaching, and to remain in the profession.
Planned and effective retention has often been examined in empirical studies (Borman & Dowling, 2008). Results consistently show that, although new teachers have the opportunity to enter a stable career path, a significant number of them (around 15% within the first year and 40–50% within the first five years) reconsider their vocational choice and leave the profession early (Allensworth et al., 2009, Smith and Ingersoll, 2004 and Vandenberghe, 2000). This high turnover has a considerable cost, both in financial terms and in terms of school coherence and performance (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). Numerous studies have investigated the factors influencing beginning teachers’ retention and attrition (see Ingersoll & Strong, 2011, for a review), which led these authors to suggest investigating other outcomes.
A factor often considered as an antecedent of persistence and performance is self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Teachers’ self-efficacy has been shown to influence their behaviour and their engagement in teaching, as well as their students’ achievement and motivation (see Hoy & Spero, 2005, for a review). Yet, after increasing during initial training, teachers’ self-efficacy has been shown to decline during the first year (Chester and Beaudin, 1996, Friedman, 2000, Hoy and Spero, 2005, Johnson and Birkeland, 2003 and Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2007). Hoy and Spero (2005) and Chester and Beaudin (1996) found that this change was influenced by the level of support experienced by novice teachers. However, Hoy and Spero (2005) specify that little is known as yet about the context characteristics that affect self-efficacy (e.g. experiences in the classroom, school characteristics, type of support).
(cont)
(cont...)
Besides motivational and cognitive outcomes, an increasing number of studies in educational psychology are considering emotional outcomes (Linnenbrink, 2006 and Schutz and Pekrun, 2007). Emotions have been found to be powerful mediators between contextual factors and behavioural outcomes (Boekaerts, 2007). More precisely, teachers’ emotions have recently been at the heart of several lines of research (Hargreaves, 2005, Kelchtermans, 1996, Kelchtermans, 2005, Leithwood and Beatty, 2008, Nias, 1996, Schutz and Zembylas, 2009 and van Veen and Lasky, 2005). With regard to beginning teachers, Bullough and Young (2002) stress the extent that interns use emotional adjectives to describe their experience of teaching. Schutz and Zembylas (2009) suggest that one explanation of the high attrition rates among beginners might be “related to the emotional nature of the teaching profession” (p. 3). Further, according to Nias (1996) emotions are tightly linked to cognitions and to the surrounding social and cultural environment, and “the fiercest of their negative emotions are currently caused by interactions with peers or superiors rather than students” (p. 295).
In this study, we will follow this line of work and consider the possible negative emotions experienced by novice teachers. Whereas positive emotions associated with teaching can be considered as a central indicator of professional fulfilment and a significant predictor of willingness to continue teaching, we assume that negative emotions (i.e. feelings of depression) are likely to turn teachers away from the career (Frenzel et al., 2009 and Schutz and Zembylas, 2009). Depression and burnout among teachers have frequently been investigated, some studies analysing the prevalence of these symptoms (e.g. Kovess-Masféty, Rios-Seidel, & Sevilla-Dedieu, 2007) and others examining the factors likely to trigger them (Hagger and Malmberg, 2011 and Kim and Kim, 2010). Only a few studies have considered these symptoms among beginning teachers specifically. However, Schonfeld (1992) stressed that beginning teachers are a particularly relevant population with whom to investigate this question, notably because the sample contains teachers who will soon leave the profession in response to adverse school conditions. In a longitudinal study, he found that work conditions (i.e. continual or occasional stressors such as overcrowded classrooms or unmotivated students, or positive events such as praise from a parent or an administrator) predicted teachers’ depressive symptoms, independently of their pre-employment symptoms and other risk factors.
- Jason M.
Elaine, you're not a bad mother for letting your son wear shorts all year. You're a bad mother for raising a child who would think that was a good idea. Birth conrol would have been a good idea in this instance.
Do you feel better now, 11:28 AM? I hope so.
Elaine
I am very proud of my son, 11:28 AM. He was always setting goals for himself. I thought it was harmless, so I approved it. We tried for a long time to have him. That was the year his father died.
Have a nice day.
Elaine
11:28 AM
That was uncalled for, rude and presumptuous.
Elaine Maybe you should have been down at PITT last year when a group of Pro-Abortion protesters were carrying signs that a woman should have the right to "abort" after birth. My wife tried to pin down if there was any age restriction to what they want but all she got was spit on. My neighbor is a Professor at PITT and he said the same group protested for Animal Rights several weeks later. But if I decide that my kids are dressed for the weather then it's a done deal. If the weather changes then maybe recess should be cancelled and an indoor activity takes its place. It's simple... THE SCHOOLS DO NOT OWN MY KIDS! My wife does.
11:28,
You are soft and a bad person. Why is wearing shorts year around a bad idea? Because you might get cold for the scant amount of time you probably spend outdoors. Soft. Pittsburgh isn't that cold. There are people that wear t-shirts outside during the winter and are never bothered by it. But not softies like you who probably run between conditioned buildings and conditioned cars. Shorts all year? Fine, do it. Good to be different. And raising a child that isn't afraid to be different is a good thing.
Elaine..why did you publish that idiot at 11:28am? Those kinds of people get off by yanking chains to see who barks. They aren't worth the price of the chemicals that makeup their bodies.
Bob D.
I asked for sources and I suppose I was mistaken that I should not have to add "within reason." What you have posted is an attempt to bury (me) with lengthy scholarly articles and intimidate anyone else who dares to question. It's rather sad because I have enjoyed your posts, agreeing with much of what you wrote.
11:28 is part of the toxic culture influencing this community and its children. It's very sad to see...
No intimidation intended. Just had an example on my computer, and cut-and-pasted the part of the article that had the most to do with teacher depression.
Also, you asked for "sources" and "citing" - so you seemed to be indicated you preferred a more academic/evidentiary response.
If you were intimidated by my post, that is probably more on you than me.
- Jason M.
2:22
YOU ASKED FOR IT;
YOU GOT IT!
I don't see it as an attempt to bury you, just supplementing his statements with sources (and I will re-iterate) YOU ASKED FOR THEM!
11:28: You make me "despair for the world" but that's OK because I know what to do....
The Peace of Wild Things
BY WENDELL BERRY
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Ugh, 11:28 - mean. Get it together - you're behaving badly.
11:28,
Just think of the effect birth control will have on Social Security for your generation. You are not going to keep up with retirement costs because, you and others like you think killing new born babies is a good idea. So you will have 40 million fewer people working to support you in retirement - poor choice!
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