Possible staggered lunch times at schools

The Ministry of Education is encouraging more parents to send prepared lunch for their children in secondary school to reduce students congregating in school canteens and lessen the chance of COVID-19 spreading in schools.

This was among the suggestions from Acting Chief Education Officer Joy Adamson as she addressed an online discussion on Wednesday night on re-opening of schools since the forced closure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to a question on the protocols for lunch for school children when the new school term starts in two weeks, Adamson said: “We are still in discussion with the Ministry of Health as to how the serving of food and how break [time] should be. We are proposing and this is not [finalized], for the School Meals, we serve them packed lunches.”

The acting education chief added: “In terms of the social aspect . . . Dr. [Yvette] Mayers and Mr. [Ivan] Clarke can attest to that. A lot of schools had to feed the children when we went online. We had a lot of food stored from School Meals and we divided that up between the secondary and primary schools and a lot of families were fed from schools.

“We want to re-open and we don’t want to just give them bread and cheese or bread and hotdogs. We can’t just give them packed lunches. We need to serve them some hot lunches so we are working with the Ministry of Health as it relates to school meals and how that will work.”

She added: “That is why we are thinking that for the shift system, those little ones will get a meal before they leave and before they start,” referencing the proposal that children in Nursery to Infants B would attend school for half the day, with one group in the morning and the other group in the afternoon.

Adamson told the session with almost 100 participants on Zoom and others following on Facebook: “At the secondary schools we have to work with the canteens and several things can come into play. You could order your lunch before and then operate to collect it. We may have to stagger the lunch hours so that we don’t have a large set and we don’t want a large set of persons on the school compound to begin with.  But we will have to stagger the times that you actually go for that lunch . . . .  You either collect the lunch or the lunch can be brought to the classroom because we don’t want that congregating outside as well.”

According to the Acting Chief Education Officer: “When we opened previously, they sat in the classrooms. And I know a lot of principals didn’t like that because that meant a little more cleaning that we would have to do but that way the teachers can supervise and we have to work out a system where the teachers can get a break and get their lunch.

“We have to work with the canteen concessionaires in the secondary schools to ensure that they have systems in place that will not have that congregation.”

Adamson encouraged more preparation of lunches by parents and guardians.

“If we start cooking and preparing meals for our children and giving it to them we would not have the challenge with the canteens at secondary school . . . .  We need parental cooperation so that the parents, if you give the child the lunch like most of us who had a flask when we went to school, the canteen was a treat maybe on Fridays. We need to go back to that. This is a new normal and we have to adjust.” (IMC1)