Tag Archive for: school

Why Riley Went to School This Week

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Tuesday was Riley’s first day of kindergarten in the classroom. One of the reasons I haven’t written memos for two weeks is because Paula and I were attending online kindergarten with Riley four times a day; that gave Jamie some time to spend with her sister, who has a serious illness (and we’d appreciate your prayers for Nicki).

Riley’s school gave each child a Chromebook already loaded with all the apps they would need for class, and he figured it out in no time. (One day we were both dismayed and proud to find him watching a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, but Paula is still more proficient than he is and blocked a few sites.) Online school for people who can’t read was interesting to say the least. I thought getting adults to mute themselves was challenging! But it didn’t take long for most kids to get it and respect the teacher and other students in class.

While we’ve been anticipating getting Riley into a classroom, it’s slightly scary; we don’t want him to get sick or bring anything home to the rest of us. The district, staff, and teachers in his elementary school have done what they could to be safe: masks, hand-washing stations and sanitizer, and social distancing to the extent possible with five-year-olds. They’ve explained how people will look and what they will do to help students. The students know they will wear masks and that they should wash their hands to the ABC song. Everyone is ready, especially Riley, who was very eager to go to school after his pre-K days were cut short.

Riley needs this; he is the most social person I know. We think it will be easier to keep him focused when he’s surrounded by other students who are paying attention rather than just looking at a screen. He could continue online, but as a family we agreed it’s worth the risk, given the advantages versus the precautions taken; if he were several years older, we might have decided to stay online, as our neighbors with older children did. Our little people-person needs the interaction with his teachers and classmates for as long as it lasts. School districts in the state that opened with in-school classes lasted about a week. Let’s hope Kentwood Schools last longer.

I’ll keep you posted on how things are going. Oh, and don’t forget, while you’re washing your hands, sing the ABC song so you make sure you wash long enough to really get rid of those germs.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

School Lunch Study Results

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Today we finish our look at a recent study designed to see if kids will eat more vegetables and fruits in school lunches (1). Over the seven-month study, there were four scenarios:

  • Schools with chef-assisted meals
  • Smart café approaches
  • Chef-assisted meals with smart café
  • Control schools that did not change their approach to school lunches

If you want to guess the results just based on logic, you would have been correct that the chef-assisted meals, with and without the smart café approach worked best. The schools . . .

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The School Lunch Study

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If you’re going to get children to eat healthier foods, you have to employ the same tactics that food manufacturers, grocery stores, and restaurants use: make it look visually appealing and display it in such a way as to help them make the healthy choice first. Of course, it must taste good but if they never put it on the plate, they’ll never know if they like the taste. With that in mind, researchers selected 14 elementary and middle schools in low-income, inner-city locations with over 2,600 children to participate in a school lunch study . . .

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Better School Lunches

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Just about every day, more school districts are opting out of the U.S. National School Lunch Program—some because they don’t want the government to tell them what to do, most to save money because school districts are allowed to opt out if costs are too high. If you’re not familiar with this issue, read the messages in late December about the Kids Act.

One of the reasons some schools give is that kids won’t eat the required vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, creating more food waste. Judging by the combinations of foods some school cafeteria . . .

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