I was just informed about the no talking during lunch.I am opting my kids out of this practice unless they are directly involved in some type of infraction. Kids sitting for 45 minuts looking at each other is insane.
We've had it in our school as a punishment. If the lunch is out of control one day, and too wild or loud, the next day they will have a silent lunch. I don't like the idea AT ALL! The biggest reason I don't like it is because it's not even the schools administration who decides on this. The power hungry lunch monitors are the people who decide. They have no power or authority yet they get to discipline an entire cafeteria of students.
Lunch is when the students get to see their friends and talk and try to have a little bit of fun during the day, they sit silently in class all day, they need to release some of their energy. I think the silent lunch idea is a horrible idea!!
Here's another point of view:
One of our local school's has the 1st 15min of a 30min lunch silent. It gives the children a chance to eat. It works for their school.
My children's school took out after school detention and replaced it with silent lunches. too many of the parents were complainning that after school detentions were interfering with car pool.
My husband was hot when he heard this, and expressed his views which I know went in one ear and out the other.
I agree w/Seredipity that this is not a PTO issue. As an involved parent and advocate for your child it is worth making your voice heard.
Our school did have this issue come up in one of our PTG meetings, as part of the principal's report. We talked about it and decided to have the kids be part of the solution. Each classroom spent a little bit of time in their morning meeting coming up with ways to make the lunchroom less noisy. All the ideas were compiled and talked about in a school meeting. The principal came up with a community contract of sorts and incentive plans based on the kids input.
