Introduction - A Little About the School

I was part of Montclair’s Leadership Development Institute for which we were asked to take on an action research project that interested us with the aim of renewing education and bringing about change. A third grade teacher at my school was also part of the LDI and we decided to do our project together. The following experience is only for my 4th grade class.

Before going into details about the project, I would like to provide some background information about my school and classroom to better understand our situation. I exclusively teach 4th grade math. There are three 4th grade homerooms and the students rotate throughout the day. I have each group for two periods for a total of 100 minutes of math.

I work in a Title 1 school where more than 90% of the students receive free breakfast and lunch. The school has around 570 students with grades ranging from Pre-K to 8th grade. In each grade level, there are either two or three homerooms. The school had changed it’s lunch period schedule than from last year. Instead of having three lunch periods, it was reduced to two. Each 50 minute lunch period is further divided into 3 parts to provide a rotational schedule so that all students will have equal amount of time.

During the lunch periods, each class follows a 16 minute rotation for advisory (time with the teacher), lunch (occurring in the cafeteria) and recess (outdoors or in the auditorium). There was also a change in the lunch provider. Lunch last year came in prepackaged, frozen individualized portions. The cafeteria staff had to heat up the frozen packages and serve each grade level. This year, food was “catered.” Food was made at a different site and delivered to the school ready to serve.