No chewing gum. Without food. No candy. No drinks. It is easy to understand why elementary school students are asked to follow the classroom rules. Teachers are too busy to spend time scraping gum off the floor and underside of desks and cleaning up spills from their students. It may be much easier to simply ban all food and drink in the classroom. However, the teachers and parents at the school where I serve as principal recently decided to rethink some of their rules or the benefit of students.
Why? Think of it this way. Let’s say a child has dinner at home at 6:00 pm almost every night. The child goes to bed around 8:30 pm and wakes up early enough to get on the school bus at 6:30 am. At this early hour there may not be time for breakfast. School lunch is served at 12 noon during the school day. That’s a whopping 18 hours without food, an unreasonable amount of time for a tiny growing body.
Similarly, students may never have the opportunity to drink fresh water. Dehydration can make students slow and tired. Drinking water helps curb your appetite and flush toxins from the body.
What did our school do with this riddle? To start with, our district approved free breakfast for all students. Already about 75% of our students received free or reduced meals from a federal government program, so allowing the rest of the students to eat breakfast at no charge was not a huge burden on the district.
We take care of ourselves at school to encourage students to eat breakfast at school. Our cafeteria staff works to make sure the morning line moves quickly and the food is tasty. Children often eat a fortified cereal bar, fruit, and milk. Our bus drivers and teacher assistants ensure that students are transferred from the school bus to the cafeteria first thing in the morning. Our teachers allow students who travel by car to bring their food from the cafeteria to the classroom if they do not have time to finish their meals before the sound of the delay bell. From time to time I check our numbers with the cafeteria manager to see how many students are eating breakfast and I send reminders to parents that it is important for students to eat a nutritious breakfast each morning.
Additionally, we encourage students to bring bottles of water to class. We ask that the bottles be clear so that we can make sure that they are really potable water and that the container has a lid. Teachers often prefer water bottles to be made with a sports hood, on which a cap can be easily opened or closed.
The results so far appear to be very positive. It seems to me that the behavior of the students is better and that the teachers can do a lot of work for their students. Students able to focus on their studies rather than their stomachs. Students continue to bring their water bottles. At least one student reportedly asks for water at home instead of soft drinks.
Just a week ago I got a call from the local fire department. They had heard about our new initiative and offered to provide all students with fire safety-themed water bottles. It’s great to know that the community is joining in what we at school feel is an important way to educate our students from head to toe.
