MOUNT VERNON – For the first time since the start of the school year, curriculum changes at Wiggin Street Elementary were not discussed during Monday night’s Mount Vernon Board of Education meeting.
While parents shared concerns with the school board during the last two meetings, Monday’s – which was held in the Wiggin Street Elementary gymnasium, and which first-year Wiggin Street Principal Matthew Dill attended – instead involved a response from Superintendent Bill Seder.
Seder recently issued a survey to all of the district’s elementary school teachers concerning the topic of recess and physical activity time during the school day.
Parents of Wiggin Street students had voiced concerns at recent board meetings about those two issues, among others, claiming that their children were not receiving adequate amounts of physical activity each day under Dill’s new curriculum. They said that adequate daily exercise is crucial to the cognitive, emotional and social development of elementary-age students.
From September: Wiggin Street parents: Curriculum is ‘developmentally inappropriate’
Seder issued the survey in order to gauge teacher feedback on the issues being discussed at recent board meetings, and he felt the feedback was constructive.
“We’ve had some good conversation over the last couple months regarding recess and those kind of things and, trust me, that does not go unnoticed by the board or by myself,” Seder said during Monday’s meeting.
“And so we asked lots of questions and we ended up doing a survey. We feel like we have lots of local experts in the way of teachers right here in Mount Vernon that can share their results.”
The survey asked teachers from each grade level – kindergarten through fifth grade – eight questions. It was also given to additional school staff such as special education teachers, librarians, and specials teachers.
In total, 92 district staff members responded. Here were the results:
1. Do you like having outdoor/indoor activities prior to the start of the school day?
- 90 percent said ‘Yes’
- 10 percent said ‘No’
“Certainly, that is a positive thing,” Seder said. “We realize that not every kid gets here maybe early enough to have an extended time, but it is saying that they like that part at the start of the day.”
Dill told Knox Pages following the board’s September meeting that under Wiggin Street’s new curriculum, he instituted voluntary supervised playtime for all students after optional breakfast and before the start of classes.
From September: Wiggin Street principal: Goal is to have ‘balanced approach’
“While we understand that not all children have the ability to utilize this active time, we have seen firsthand the positive effects that this early active play time can have,” Dill said in an email statement. “Last year, students previously sat in cafeteria upon arrival after arriving to school before classes began.”
2. Do you think students should have an AM recess between the start of school and the end of lunch?
- 52 percent said ‘Yes’
- 48 percent said ‘No’
While the vote appeared to be nearly even, Seder said he looked further into the results to find that most of the teachers of younger grades – kindergarten, first, second and third grades – tended to support having an additional morning recess.
Most of the teachers of older grades, on the other hand, “didn’t see quite the same level of need to have morning recess, since they just came in at 9 o’clock,” Seder said.
Dill said there is not currently morning recess at Wiggin Street Elementary.
3. If you answered YES to the previous question, how long do you believe would be appropriate for an AM recess? If you answered NO please select NA.
- 50 percent said 15 minutes
- 37.5 percent said “N/A”
- 11 percent said 10 minutes
- 1.5 percent said 20 minutes
Seder said the options given for the question were 10, 15 or 20 minutes.
4. Do you think students have adequate time for recess during lunch time?
- 97 percent said ‘Yes’
- The remaining 3 percent was split evenly between ‘No,’ ‘It’s a good amount for lunch, but overall the day could use a little more,’ and ‘I would prefer that this time is broken up and used throughout the day.’
“We received a pretty overwhelming ‘Yes, that’s a good amount of time,’” Seder said. Generally, Seder explained, each elementary school within the district has an hour block during lunch to use for eating and recess time.
In the past two school board meetings, parents had voiced concerns about Dill’s new curriculum, which cut recess time to 30 minutes per lunch period for kindergarten-fifth graders. Parents cited the cognitive and social benefits of recess time for young students.
Since the last board meeting (Sept. 17), Dill adjusted the hour block to be 20 minutes of lunch and 40 minutes of recess, which he said “was the same practice that was in place last year.”
5. Do you think students should have a PM recess between lunch and the end of the day?
- 75 percent said ‘Yes’
- 25 percent said ‘No’
A larger number of teachers wanted an afternoon recess, as opposed to an additional morning recess. Seder thought that made sense.
“The interesting part was numbers really rose on this,” Seder said. “While we had about 50/50 in the morning, in the afternoon, nearly three-quarters of the teachers thought, ‘You know what, it does make some sense to be looking at some afternoon breaks, recess and that type of thing.’”
Dill told Knox Pages last month that parents were concerned about the elimination of afternoon recess (which he said previously lasted 15 minutes for grades 2-5 at Wiggin Street) in the new curriculum.
Dill said that in his previous 8.5 years as an elementary principal (he last served at Columbia Elementary) and 4.5 years as superintendent, he has “never worked with an elementary school that has had a scheduled afternoon recess for grades 2-5.”
6. If you answered YES to the previous question, how long do you believe would be appropriate for a PM recess? If you answered NO please select NA.
- 64 percent said 15 minutes
- 19 percent said “NA”
- 14 percent said 10 minutes
- 3 percent said 20 minutes
Like the third question, the options given in this case were 10, 15 or 20 minutes.
7. Do you have flexibility in your day to give your students breaks/recesses when you feel it is needed?
- 60 percent said ‘Yes’
- 16 percent said ‘No’
- The remaining 24 percent gave specific answers for why not, such as being a specials teacher or having limited time with special education students.
Seder explained that many of the district’s principals will allow teachers to take their students out for activity breaks during the day if they feel it is necessary to do so. Dill told Knox Pages that he encourages teachers to “engage students in active learning activities.”
“I wanted to get a sense of how many of them really feel empowered to do that,” Seder said Monday. “And I think 60 percent felt that way, but there’s about 15 percent that, you know, they would ask to request it. And so I found that to be kind of interesting.”
8. Do you incorporate physical activity for your students within your instructional day?
- 77 percent said ‘Yes’
- 23 percent said ‘No’
While Seder said that he was initially “shocked” by the 77 percent figure, as he assumed it would have been higher, he drilled deeper into the results to find that a large portion of the 23 percent that said ‘No’ were teachers who had limited time with students, such as physical education or special education teachers.
“They weren’t really my K-1,2,3,4,5 teachers. They were intervention specialists who only get their kids for 20, 30-minute increments. So they needed that time. They were some of my specials teachers who answered this way,” Seder said.
“And so by-and-large, my K1-5 teachers do incorporate physical activity within their day. So they’re not just sitting in their seats from 9 o’clock to lunch. They’re incorporating those kinds of activities when they’re getting the sense that their students need to move a little bit.”
This contradicts what several parents told the board during recent meetings. Some Wiggin Street parents claimed their children were sitting in the classroom for two and three-hour stretches during instruction, which they believed would be detrimental to their learning.
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In conclusion, Seder said that he found the survey helpful. He said he would share the results with all district teachers, and that he plans on gathering all principals to have a meeting to discuss the results.
“I think those that came to the meetings and shared their concerns, it forced us to take a look at it. In some instances, we might say, ‘You know what, we’re right on track,’ and in other instances it’s caused us to take a step back and look at it. And in this case I thought, ‘What better way to find out from our experts, which are our teachers?’” Seder said.
“I would envision, as principals, we’ll get together (and) we’ll look at that data. How closely aligned are we to it? Do we need to make some adjustments? Because I think not only has the community shared some input, but now our teachers have, so we’ll see where it goes.”
Although the issue was not addressed in Seder’s survey, Wiggin Street parents had also expressed concern over the amount of time dedicated to ‘specials,’ such as music, art and physical education, which had initially been 40 minutes per week this school year.
Dill said initially that over the last five years, he had always instituted 40 minutes weekly for specials classes. However, after talking with specials teachers, parents – and through the observation of students – Dill decided to increase time for specials to 45 minutes per week (effective Sept. 25).
“This will increase our instructional time dedicated to specials courses from 200 to 225 minutes per week,” Dill said. “During the 2017-18 school year, students only had 200 minutes dedicated towards four specials classes.”
Parents like Andrea White, a mother of two Wiggin Street students and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Kenyon College, said that as the amount of time dedicated to specials continues to decrease nationwide (she said music was taught 80 minutes per week in 1995), children will continue to lose the benefits of a wholesome education.
“We lose all of this and we don’t ever get it back,” White told the board on Sept. 17. “And for educating the whole child, we’re going in the exact opposite direction.”
Parents also argued against the increase in classroom time spent on technology (keyboarding) and testing, as several called the curriculum changes “developmentally inappropriate.”
Dill told Knox Pages that he added a weekly technology class for grades K-5 this year and that “the skills that they learn in this class are reinforced in all classrooms through a balanced approach of instructional strategies.”
During last month’s meeting, parents said that they had not been able to meet with Dill in a group setting to discuss their concerns, although he had met with families individually. Dill told Knox Pages later that week that he would be willing to schedule meetings with parents and that he values all feedback.
“I believe the key factor in any relationship is open communication,” Dill said in an email statement. “I hope that all the stakeholders that I work with at Wiggin Street Elementary continue to build off of this type of relationship focused on students, being productive, and creating a positive learning environment for all.”
The school board will hold meetings at each of the district’s schools this year in an effort to increase visibility and examine the needs of each facility. The board’s next meeting will be on Nov. 19 at Mount Vernon High School.
