POTTSTOWN PA – Complaints from families who allege their children have come home with more bruises and bandages after mid-day play at Ringing Rocks Elementary School will cause the Pottsgrove School District to re-train some staff members who supervise recess activity, increase chances for structured play, and ask parents to promptly report specific problems.
What administrators won’t do, yet, the Board of School Directors heard Tuesday (Sept. 25, 2012), is reduce the number of students occupying Ringing’s recess area or change current policies on when and how parents are notified of what its nurses might consider minor or routine injuries.
The district is responding primarily to a still-growing number of comments on social media platforms, a comparatively small number of direct calls to the school or district office, and most recently an anonymous opinion phoned in to The (Pottstown PA) Mercury’s “Sound Off” column and published Sunday (Sept. 23).
“There’s a growing concern in Pottsgrove School District regarding recess at Ringing Rocks and West Pottsgrove,” the Sound Off opinion began. “Ringing Rocks has approximately 150 kindergarteners out at the same time with five aides and West has about 100 children out with five aides. This is entirely too many children per one adult. Are there any regulations? Many children have been coming home with bumps, bruises, cuts and some broken bones. The district needs to hire more help.”
At Ringing Rocks, visits to a nurse by children related to recess incidents – about 13 percent of all nursing visits during the period of Aug. 27 through Sept. 14 – is up slightly from 11 percent for approximately the same period last year, Assistant Superintendent Shellie A. Feola acknowledged. The majority of them, she said “were for scrapes, bruises and skinned knees.”
To help deal with that increase, Feola added, the district intends to:
- Retrain recess duty aides at Ringing “to get them more engaged with the kids” and, by being proactive, hopefully better control playtime mishaps;
- Finish recess area improvements that had been delayed at Ringing. They include re-painting of game squares and surfaces on new paving there, and the installation of swings and funnel ball equipment; and
- Encourage parents to notify building principals first and, failing that, the district office, of specific incidents or concerns. “We’re going to be very open if these things are brought to our attention,” Feola said.
Parents Rick Rabinowitz and Greg Barry, who attended the board meeting at the Kauffman Road office, suggested that more children were occupying the recess area now than in the past and that some incidents likely were attributable to the size of the play crowd.
The district’s desire to increase “socialization” among students in different classes, and its need to create dedicated time in which teachers can confer on student performance issues, make it unlikely the recess schedule will change, according to Feola.
At least one board member seemed unconvinced the problem, if it existed, was a significant one. Director Michael Neiffer scoffed at what he called “the absurdity of it all” by noting that before this year’s change to educational centers the district heard few if any concerns about recess incidents at Ringing. Current complaints, he indicated, were motivated by dissatisfaction with the board’s redistricting decisions.
Parents won’t be personally notified, by a note or phone call, of future playground incidents involving their children unless they involve serious medical consequences, Feola added. They include a need to leave the building, a need for follow-up care, a substantial increase in nursing visits by a specific child that may signal a problem, or other circumstances in which contact “is deemed necessary by a nurse.”
At Ringing alone, Feola said, a nurse sees an average of 40 students daily, or roughly six every hour. The load “makes it almost impossible to call parents” and accomplish other tasks too, she claimed.
Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ Sept. 25 meeting):
- Ringing Rocks’ Recess Concerns Prompt Some Changes
- Three Down, One To Go In Pottsgrove Busing Issues
- Acting Superintendent Taps Experience From FL, OH, PA
- Pottsgrove Names Shellie Feola As Acting Superintendent
Photo from Google Images
First off I am not the anonymous opinion phoned in, nor am a catalyst for encouraging reports. I have no complaints personally and I take full credit for my opinions. I must have missed the part where she said the 40 visits per day… she just gave the percents without further numbers so the percents could have been about any fraction of anything. I did mention that hard numbers would show the full picture at the board meeting, even though I knew the Administration would not provide the entire picture.
What they did not take into account was that the amount of kids (as well as the ages) attending Rocks last year was significantly different.
There is no rallying against the centers going on, there are concerned parents who are being shrugged off as absurd complainers. (I do add that only one board member express this opinion, not all of the current board)
It is all about making sure that issues that were overlooked or missing from the implementation plan get resolved in a timely manner. The sheer number of kids on the playground was never a part of the community connection meetings that I attended.
I personally have tried to work to make the centers successful because it our children who are the ones who would suffer if they are not. There is no one in our community that would do anything against helping our kids have the best experience at school that they can.
Yes, there are concerns as to the amount of children on the playground at one time. Anytime you more than double the amount of kids in one place you expect to see some increase in minor injuries. The communication among parent has been greatly expanded over the last year so I would expect to be reading items as the crop up and people vent.
Frankly, I do not recall any issues like this cropping up in the spring regarding any injury postings on social media, but there were several bully related issues at Rocks (during recess) in the spring. The bullying was bought to the Boards attention by a few parents after working with the schools.
The parents have contacted the school and resolved any issues they had. The schools have been excellent in responding to parent concerns. Parents could not be more pleased with the schools responsiveness.
There are roughly 5 aides for 120 – 150 children at Lower and 5 aides for the same amount at Rocks… given the size of the Playground and macadam at rocks, as well as the age and coordination of younger kids, would it not make sense to lower the amount of children at recess at one time.
At the meeting, Mr. Neiffer asked, rhetorically why there were complaints now and there weren’t any complaints last year when Rocks reopened, suggesting, as the article correctly indicates, that the complaints were “absurd” and motivated by an anti-centers agenda. He continued by asking, “what is different from last year to this year”? or something very close to that. When I got up for public comment, I answered his question by saying that last year we had 3 classes on the playground and now we have 7. I also pointed out at the meeting that the complaints from parents have been numerous and that having a member of the board angrily suggest that parental concerns are “absurd” while looking at one of our parents and suggesting “I’m talking to you” only serves to further alienate a community that feels its board and administration are deaf to their concerns.
As part of our transition to elementary centers, the district is committed to providing the very best education for each child in a safe and positive environment. Administration and the Board of Education have received some concerns about recess procedures at Ringing Rocks Elementary School. At the school board meeting on September 25, 2012, the Administration made a report to the Board regarding their investigation into this issue. The following points were reported:
1. Size & Numbers on Playground at once
• Ringing Rocks Hard surface area = 24,700 square feet
• Lower’s Hard surface area = 19,530 square feet
• Ringing Rocks currently has 7 sections of recess at one time (Lower currently has 5-6 sections and has successfully had up to 7 sections prior to this year).
• The rationale for scheduling 7 sections of recess at one time is as follows:
o Parents requested via community connection meetings to provide an opportunity for all kids to mix.
o The current schedule was designed to provide the best use of instructional time (large blocks of English/language arts and math).
o The current schedule allows lunch and recess to be spread out so students received two breaks from core instruction coupled with a third break for encore/specials.
• It was surmised that data team time drove the rationale for having seven sections of recess at one time. The current schedule offers one option of many that affords teachers valuable data team time.
2. Available Activities for children
The Lower Elementary playground macadam was painted as part of a summer project while the Ringing Rocks playground macadam was scheduled to be painted during the reconstruction project, but was delayed. This work was completed this week. The painted activities will include four square, hop scotch, 1 world map, 2 square, and kickball.
Ringing Rocks will also have 3 basketball hoops, one funnel ball and additional swings (which will increase the current number to 10). These should be in operation by the beginning of next week.
3. Time of Day for Recess
• The objective is to have core instruction early in the day (particularly for younger students).
• Traditionally recess, lunch and specials are spread out to allow three “breaks” from instruction and recess is often later in the day. Splitting recess into two separate sections for each grade level would ultimately result in later recess times.
4. Safety – number of injuries at Ringing Rocks (due to size of playground)
• After a review of the nursing reports from August 27 through September 14 (13 school days), 13% of all incidents were recess-related compared to 11% of incidents during the same period of time last year.
• While there is a 2% increase this year, the student population has increased by approximately 26% so the percent of recess-related incidents are similar or less than they have been in past years.
• Injuries are all minor bruises and scraped knees that you would typically see at recess. In the above stated time frame, the nurse completed one incident report (small abrasions with minimal bleeding).
5. Communications from the Nursing Office
• The district protocol for notifying a parent or guardian for a nurse visit is as follows:
1. The student is being excluded from school per the PA Department of Health Guidelines or The Emergency Guidelines For Schools (i.e. fever, vomiting, contagious illness, head lice, etc.)
2. The student needs follow up care or monitoring at home (i.e. head bump, wound care, orthopedic concern, etc.)
3. The student needs immediate medical treatment or testing (i.e. doctor’s appointment, sutures, x ray, etc.)
4. The student has frequent health room visits possibly indicating a health problem
5. It is deemed necessary by the nurse caring for the student
A form letter shall be sent home with the student for the following reasons:
1. Oral medication was administered in the elementary school (per standing orders)
2. A head injury occurred (a phone call shall also be made if there are signs of a possible concussion)
3. A tick is removed from the body
4. To report diabetic activity for the day (as requested by the parent)
• On average, the nurse receives 40 nurse visits per day, which amounts to 5.2 recess-related injuries (per day). At 40 visits per day on average multiplied by 5 minutes per call, a nurse would require 3.3 hours just to make phone calls home.
We value parental input. As such, we are adding one additional duty aide for the first and second grade recesses. We believe that the adjustments that were made have this situation firmly under control, but as always we will continue to monitor and adjust as needed.