Opinions

Nutrition Break in Danger By Susannah Bateman

Students at Leo Hayes began school this September to find that a new schedule had been assigned to Tuesdays and Thursdays. This schedule allowed extra time for homeroom advisory periods, yet in doing so eliminated the ten minute nutrition break in the morning. While this does keep students in class for a longer time each week, is it really wise? Nutrition break is a time for students to have a snack, use the washroom, or go to their lockers; activities that the regular five minute intervals between classes do not allow. In removing the nutrition break, is more class time being wasted?

According to the American Dietetic Association, half of teenage boys and two thirds of teenage girls do not eat breakfast regularly. Nutrition break provides these students with an opportunity to have a snack, and enables them to be alert and prepared for their classes. Without the break, many students go until noon without having eaten anything. Students who have not eaten before class cannot concentrate nor do their best academically. Yes, they would be in class for five minutes longer, but they would not be performing at their best.

Having a break also provides students with a time to use the washroom. With that time taken away, students will be forced to leave class. Teachers will be faced with constant interruptions to their classes as students will inevitably have to leave. Students should be provided with an optimal learning environment, but this environment simply won’t exist with constant disruptions.

Many students will be showing up late for class, as they will have to go to their lockers in between class. Students cannot be expected to carry three periods’ worth of binders and textbooks, and the hallways are too crowded for many students to get to their lockers and then to class before the bell. While eradicating the nutrition break //theoretically// keeps students in the classroom longer, in reality it doesn’t work that way. Students who need the break to have a snack will be unfocused during class. The tasks normally performed during nutrition break will instead be carried out during class time, disrupting the whole period. Do those five extra minutes of class time really benefit the students?

[Alternate view...]

Advisory Period: Well Advised? by Alex Nelson

My little brother just started grade 9 here at Leo Hayes. He got a folder with all kinds of documents and school info for freshmen. One of these papers was entirely devoted to something teachers have always told us was so important: Nutrition Break. The paper explained that proper nutrition is necessary for your health, and eating snacks throughout the day is the best way to stay energized and focused. This is true. I never used to completely believe it but after many years of school, I can tell how much easier school is when I’m not hungry. You can imagine my perplexity then, when the next sheet in the folder stated that they would be eliminating nutrition break on Tuesdays and Thursdays //every week// as part of the schedule rearrangement for something called “Advisory time.” When I started school this year I felt like him, a little freshman again! On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would walk into 5th period to find a class I didn’t know looking at me like I had 3 heads.

At first I was confused. What’s the point of this advisory? What are we going to do in homeroom twice a week? And it’s not like I got a whole lot of answers. The only information I got about it stated that for advisory, my homeroom teacher isn’t a teacher because she doesn’t teach. She’s not a counselor because she doesn’t counsel. She’s not a friend (even though she’s friendly) but rather an advisor. This didn’t tell me anything I wanted to know.

I asked around. As far as I could figure out, advisory time is used to eliminate the “extended homerooms” that we had last year that used to shorten all the classes. But I don’t understand how this is better. Since every class is shortened by 5 minutes, because we’ll be doing this ALL year, we’re losing more time than if they had just messed the schedules up a few days here and there.

It gets better. Not only do they take nutrition break and turn it into a 5-minute transition time to get from class to class, but the cafeteria is closed. That’s pretty bad; kids can’t even get something nice to eat between breakfast and lunch. I say “nice” because the only food they have access to would be the vending machines. [At the time of this article, the contents of the only food vending machine were gum, baked chips, halls, and a toothbrush\toothpaste package.]

My homeroom teacher tells me that eventually advisory time will be just a period where we can do homework and such. If that’s true, then that means that they don’t have a full year’s worth of “advisory time material.” If __that__’s true, then they didn’t need to schedule two periods a day for a full year like this; it's wasting time we could be in class learning. (Not everyone’s top priority, but it’s mine.)

I can’t, however, just gripe. I do have some easy solutions! For one, I don’t think it’s too unreasonable for the cafeteria to be open for 5 minutes between periods 1 and 2. Or if that IS too much to ask, why not just the little cart of cookies, cinnamon buns and milk that’s usually stationed outside? Some form of hot or fresh food would be nice. Finally, a suggestion for next year: Either make sure the time you’re sending kids back to homeroom is full of material, or shorten the amount of time you’re sending kids back to homeroom. The Longboard Craze By:Curtis Ward    The longboard craze that swept our city this summer was in my opinion completely pathetic for the simple reason that it was just a bunch of rich kids who had seen an episode or two of the “Eh Team” on YouTube and decided they wanted to emulate the Landyachtz team. I did see some rather dedicated riders such as myself who have been carving the streets of the downtown area for the past couple of years. It really bothers me that the experienced riders of our city are paid little respect and we are being ridiculed because we can’t afford the newest gear and we had to work overtime to just afford the gear we have.