Our School Cafeteria Was Out Of Control… Here’s How We Fixed It.
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I am a preschool teacher.
My school decided we needed to help with lunch duty for the upper grades…
Then watch this video for some more context:
It was not just volume levels, we’re talking about bullying and disrespect all over the place!
Kids were doing bad stuff left and right because nothing happened to stop it…Adults would see something, try to go address it and kids would ignore them, walk away - it was bad!
Kids were being so mean.
Lunch time didn’t feel good for anyone…
I brought it up to my principal and she was like “you wanna fix it? Go ahead.” And I was like “wait, no I don’t want to fix it… I’ve got preschool stuff to do…”
But she was too busy, so it fell on me and a small team of people who decided they wanted to fix these problems too!
I want to be clear-I’m not a cafeteria expert…
I don’t even teach in the upper grades—
I was completely WINGING IT…
But I tried some stuff…
And good thing, right?
Because these ideas worked!
I’m here to share them in case another school needs this help…
Here’s What We Did:
👉🏼NAMED The Cafeteria
-We wanted it to feel a little more special than just “the cafeteria”…
(We called it “The Monarch Cafe” because we were the Monarchs.)
Here’s an actual picture of the cafeteria, you’ll see why it’s in the form of a youtube video in a second…
👉🏼Adjusted The Lighting/Added Music
-We wanted it to feel different when the kids came in…so we dimmed the overhead lights and I hung Christmas lights around the entire room.
-We also played calming spa music.
🎵Here’s a whole playlist of calming music you can check out!
👉🏿HELD THEM ACCOUNTABLE
I made a sheet for recording feedback that went at the end of each table.
It was laminated and we used dry erase makers to make notes.
We wanted to show kids what you do during lunchtime, matters.
The front was for adults to write notes about the class as a whole.
and there was a spot on the back where they could make notes about specific kids. Then, their teachers could decide about consequences later — it usually meant that child would miss out on the class celebration because they were not helping their class to earn it.
We made it very clear to them, you do not want your name to be written down!
And very few kids had their names written down, but it was there if it was needed.
THIS WAS A RESET.
It started strict, but that was only temporary.
It was out of control so we had to get systems in place, tighten the reins, and most importantly, reset the culture and connection with students — so that We could all start working together - because we know it doesn’t work if you just try to take everything away and control them…
We had to start at the basics and let them earn their freedoms back and they wanted to do it because we framed the whole thing as a positive — you can earn fun experiences with your classmates…
AND we had to make it clear that the mean bully stuff that was happening before IS NOT WELCOME HERE.
👉🏿CELEBRATED PROGRESS AND ACKNOWLEDGED KIDS
I made YouTube videos that were shared with the whole school…
In the first one I introduced the kids to the cafeteria workers, showed them their photo and told them their name, so they could greet and thank the cafeteria staff by name…
I used the videos to:
update everyone on the progress
point out things we were still working on
and most importantly they were a great way to publicly recognize all the great things that were happening…⭐
👉🏻STUDENT LEADERS & HAND SIGNALS
We created hand signal system for dismissing…
And then empowered students to be the ones who got to dismiss their tables, (there were 3 student leaders in each class who’s photos were posted on the wall… and they got to be the dismissers)— we had a clear system, they’d stand at the front of the table, hold up a 1, everyone would look at them, 2 everyone would gather their things and stand behind their chair, and 3-they would walk away with all their trash…
It feels kinda military but it was done in a fun way, student leaders, using hand signals to ensure their peers collected all their trash and didn’t leave a mess…
👉🏽POST-IT NOTES
We had all the grades use post-it notes to write encouraging notes, draw pictures, and write words to motivate us… then we displayed them in the cafeteria so we could be reminded of what we’re working for and why!
👉🏼LIGHT SIGNALS
We’d use the lights to reset the volume if it got too loud.
Someone would go turn the lights off… and everyone would put up their hand with a specific hand signal that we used at our school for “quiet” and once the room was silent, we’d turn them back on
That way, when everyone would start talking — it was back to a much lower level.
It’s easy for it to get too loud when you have so many kids in one place, but using the lights as a re-set was an easy way to bring it back down again and move on!
👉🏿STAR STICKERS
I printed these star stickers (that were black and white so kids could color them) and we handed them out to every class.
Then the teachers would collect them and we’d keep them in the cafeteria.
Whoever was on lunch duty could grab a stack and put them on kids they saw being role models.
⭐ It was another way to let kids know, “I see what you’re doing!” It was like a badge to wear…
Everybody knew it meant they’d done something helpful during lunch so they’d get a few extra high fives or teachers could decide to reward them however they wanted in their rooms.
⭐ STAR STICKER TEMPLATES
This was one of the sheets of star stickers I created. I’d print them on labels so they became “star stickers!”
⭐ ROLE MODELS
The classes would color them and we’d give them out during lunch to make an example of students who were being role models.
👉🏼REWARDS TO EARN
There were places on the recording sheets for classes to earn 10 stars and once they did, they’d earn a small 20 or 30 minute break with their classmates…
SOME POSSIBLE REWARDS:
✔ extra recess
✔ Dance party
✔ Decorate the cafe
✔ Bronco dress up day
✔ Water balloons
✔ Hat day
WANT TO KNOW WHAT ONE OF THE FAVORITE REWARDS WAS???
>>> 30 minutes arts and crafts
Such a simple reward, but especially in the older grades - THEY LOVED THIS ONE! They enjoyed just getting to sit and color or do some arts and crafts for a little bit 🤗
Why did it work?
🌻 We made it fun and we gave them power.
The entire school became excited about the new lunch room
and the students liked being LEADERS,
it was no longer up to the adults to “CONTROL” the cafeteria…
🌻 We empowered the kids to step up and take the lead
— because that’s what they were doing anyway…
once we stopped working against each other—
The kids all stepped up
The tension went away
And, the head cafeteria woman, who scans every kid’s card every single day… told me she looks forward to lunch time now!
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