Mineola Schools Address Recess Rumors

Students in the Mineola School District will still have recess in the 2012-13 school year. That was the message from Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler after a parent raised the question during the ’s regular meeting at the .

“We’re not eliminating recess; that’s a bad word,” Dr. Nagler said at the January 18 meeting, stating that recess is in all proposed schedules for the 2012-13 year, but is shortened in length.

“Why is it shortened is kind of indirectly related to the achievement but the more programs we try to bring in, , that people seem to like, the less time we have for kids in class; so something’s got to give.”

Part of the problem facing the district is simply a matter of time: with a mandated amount of physical education time as well as the new foreign language program and combined with recess, “all of those things together shorten the time kids have in class, so that’s the problem,” Dr. Nagler said. “I’m not anti-recess. The question becomes, can you fit them all in a day and if you do, how do you structure the day?”

Public schools are mandated to provide a minimum of 120 minutes of physical education per week, or about 24 minutes per day.

Parent Ken Baker suggested adding an additional class or cutting minutes away from other classes to provide the necessary recreational time.

“It’s just something that to me would be an absolute travesty to the children,” he said, reporting that rumors had been circulating about the subject of doing away with recess time. “I understand boosting test scores but taking away a child’s time to develop with other kids within their schools, it’s the only time that they have to do it.”

In response, Dr. Nagler said that “the piece I think you heard is half of our kids right now district-wide are not at proficient levels in pretty much every grade; we’re not doing well and I have to address that. And that has to be the first thing we deal with so the class time, we can’t mess with that. We , we have to leave them with their teachers and teachers have to take ownership of the kids.”

Board vice-president William Hornberger asked about adding time to the school day in a move similar to what was done several years ago when the day was extended by 10-15 minutes. Such a move however would have to be negotiated into the new teacher’s contract, which is reportedly currently at an impasse in talks.

“I wouldn’t want to truncate time from other subject matters, understanding again pre-k to two is not an area where we’re talking about all the different types of subjects or the depth of the subject matter as we get to a later age group,” Hornberger said. “Kindergarten or first grade are not the same (as they were).”

Testing in kindergarten and first grade has increased in recent years and more tests are scheduled in future years as well with tracking of achievement beginning as early as 5 years old.

“I don’t agree with that, but I can’t ignore that,” Dr. Nagler said. “I don’t have a simple answer.”

The superintendent stated that the administration wishes to hear “possible solutions” from parents as well as input on the subject of the schedules.

“We’re looking for a solution to get it all and I don’t pretend to have all the answers about it and I understand people are upset about it,” Dr. Nagler said. “The more programs we try to put in, the actual worse it gets to try to fit it all in in a day.”

This year the district is piloting a schedule in the first grade where recess is only in a “limited” capacity, given three times per week instead of every day.

“We did that on purpose this year to kind of roll it out and see how it went,” the superintendent said, later adding that the current structure is a minimum of 10 minutes every day with one day of 30 minutes.

Tentative schedules have been created for next year, but were not available for display at the meeting.

“When you see the schedule and you see all the other classes fit in, it’s obvious that it’s not an easy spot to put it... the PE in this case because that’s what it’s backing against,” Dr. Nagler said.

He again stressed that the district is looking for feedback on the schedule and stated that he would be holding a meeting for parents of students in pre-K through second grade on the topic.