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From technology to textbooks to teacher training, school planning often has a lot of competing priorities. Some things—like the morning schedule, lunch and activity time, or the building's physical environment—by their very banality often fall to the bottom of that priority list.
Yet evidence is mounting that attending to these basic aspects of students' school experiences can significantly improve their academic focus, concentration, and mental well-being. And often the challenges to making changes in school structures seem insurmountable. But many schools are coming up with creative solutions.
In Seattle, for example, "it took years" to convince the district to delay high school start times to give adolescents more sleep, according to teacher Cynthia Jatul. "When we first started bringing it up to the school board, they said that they had tried and had never been able to fully implement the policy because there are so many factors that surround school start time, and a lot of those things are difficult to change. So even though it was known that it would be much better, nothing was done."
Yet switching the bus schedule to pick up elementary students before high schoolers ultimately reduced stress at both levels, as older students got more rest and parents of younger children were able to get to work earlier.
The following stories highlight four issues that often get short shrift in school planning, and the schools and districts that are working to improve them:
Meal Time
On paper, 20 minutes is enough time to eat. In practice, Betti Wiggins knows it's nowhere near enough time for lunch.
"If you make it to the cafeteria in under 5 minutes, the line can be anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how many kids are in that class," said Wiggins, the Houston school district's officer of nutrition services. "Do you have 15 leisurely minutes to eat? No. If you are the first kid in line, you're lucky. If you are in the last 15, God help you—the last kid generally has four to five minutes to eat."
Even as the average school lunch has gotten healthier under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, the overflowing waste bins in many...