SMART Lunch changes affect teachers, too
Students make their way to lunch and tutorials.
November 27, 2016
It’s no secret that the amount of students at Kennedy High School has increased. There are 1,910 students this school year and with the increase in students there is even less space. During winter, the cafeteria patio will close and SMART lunch times will be changed due to the limited amount of cafeteria space, according to Torch reports last week. (See: Daily Schedule Getting A Makeover).
On average, during Kennedy lunch times, there have been about 200 to 300 students going to SMART Lunch tutorials, according to principal Jason Kline. He keeps track of the teachers’ SMART Lunch tutorial data.
“There is only a small amount of students going to tutorial each day,” Kline said. “The small amount of students going only helps a little with the limited amount of (cafeteria) space.”
SMART lunch started a couple years ago as a helpful tool for students in activities, students who need help with classwork, or for students who want a teacher just to help them get work made up. Each time a student attends a tutorial they might be able to bring up a class grade.
“There is a clear relationship between going to tutorials and grades going up,” Kline said.
With the change in winter SMART Lunch times, students may not like losing the midday break. They will now attend SMART Time, which will take place after second period class. It’s a mid-morning session that’s a little shorter tutorial time for students and for teachers.
For teachers, the change may be hard, too. Teachers use the regular sessions of SMART lunch to help students with classwork. The time also helps teachers to build a relationship with a student to better help the student in class, as it allows teachers to work one on one with students and also can be time that helps teachers get grading done as students work on catching up or on class projects.
“SMART lunch was created to help the students,” social studies teacher George Anderson said. “For teachers the loss of SMART lunch would make teachers to spend more time before and after school for their own work and to help students. Without SMART lunch, the main focus would be business focused.”
See also some news and opinions about SMART Lunch as reported by Torch the last few years: