15 minutes sounds like an awfully short amount of time, our elementary children get 20 minutes to eat. That's only 5 min more, so I guess it's not that much shorter than our children's lunch. I help with the 1st graders the first few weeks of school at lunch, and the main problem they have is understanding the importance of eating and not socializing. Once they get that down, 20 minutes is ample time for them to eat. My beef with our lunch program is that all children pay $1.75 for their lunch and THEN they can pick and choose what they want, I've seen children come into the lunch room with just milk and a sandwich, when there were fruits and vegetables that were also available all for the same price.
Our lunch period is 25 minutes, and it's a fixed time like yours--so if the teacher is late, they lose time off lunch. As to how long they really get to eat, I'm going to guess that it's pretty close to the 25 minutes or so. Most teachers leave their classrooms a few minutes before their scheduled lunchtime begins, so it just depends on how long it takes to get to the cafeteria and how long they have to wait in line for their food (assuming they are buying lunch). If they bring their lunch, they can sit right down and start eating as soon as they get in.
I'd like to get some idea how much time (in minutes) your elementary school children are given to eat their lunch. I don't want to know how long the lunch period is, but exactly how much time they get to eat. Our kids are given 15 minutes to get to the lunch room, get their lunch and eat it. If the teacher is late, too bad! The time starts when the time starts. This is all because of location constraints etc. Thanks for responding.
