Memo

Date:
To:
From:
Subject:

October 20, 2015

Faculty and Staff
Arrowhead Park Early College High School
Karen Black
Kael Boss
APECHS Students
Recommendation Report for Extended Lunch Period

Attached is the report of our study: Lunch Period Extension at APECHS: A

Recommendation Report. We have finished the tasks detailed in our proposal of
October 20, 2015: research faculty opinions on a formal policy on longer lunch periods,
research students opinion on longer lunch times, and analyze data to develop a
recommendation report.
To get these tasks done, we executed secondary and primary research. We learned about
class and bus-scheduling times and distributed surveys for the staff and students of
APECHS. Then, we gathered our data, analyzed it, and wrote our report.
Our outcomes suggest that the faculty and staff will most likely be interested to the
feasibility study. Furthermore, APECHS accepts a formal policy to change the lunch
period time everyone, staff and students, will reactive positively togiven that the school
makes sure that a good schedule is create in collaboration with classes and buses. In
addition, we discovered that 340 students are prepared to show up earlier and leave later
for classes if that is what has to be done in order to extend the lunch period. The bus and
class schedule show no interference with any new altering of the school times, as long as
the time increase in the morning is equal to that of the time increase in the afternoon.
Although, the current time schedule allows a later start and earlier release, it doesnt
allow students the ability to go off campus with enough time to get to class or time and
even increase bad driving behavior (endangering students).
Due to these findings, we recommend that APECHS continue with the feasibility study
on the extended lunch period policy for the campus.
We are thankful for your confidence in allowing us to participate in the beginning stages
of the feasibility study, and we look forward to working on other portions of this study
with you. If there are any questions, concerns, or comments, please contact Kael Boss at
boss@apches.edu or at 555-5555.

Lunch Period Extension at APECHS:

A Recommendation Report
Prepared for:
Prepared by:

Faculty and Staff of APECHS

Karen Black
Kael Boss
APECHS Students
October 20, 2015

Abstract
Lunch Period Extension at APECHS: A Recommendation Report
Prepared by: Karen Black
Kael Boss
APECHS Students
On October 20, 2015, Jennifer Amis, Principle at Arrowhead Park Early College High
School (APECHS), formally requested the APECHS students to be a part of a feasibility
study on a lunch period extension at APECHS by evaluating the staff and student
attitudes on the lunch period time addition and determine if the current time block for
lunch is affective or less affective for students and how the school should follow the
feasibility study. To accomplish this research, APECHS juniors created questions for
surveys that were to be distributed to the entire school. We learned that the staff those
who would be directly affected or indirectly affected by the changeare indeed very
open to a thorough and meticulous feasibility study. The biggest concern for the staff is
that if there would be any trouble getting the students to willingly show up to class earlier
and leave later. Over two thirds of students stated an eagerness to show up early and
leave late if they did in fact receive a longer lunchtime. 17 percent were willing to come
up to thirty minutes earlier than the normal class start time or leave thirty minutes later as
well. The lunch period can be extended but the extra time required to do so should be
equally spread throughout the day. We recommend that APECHS consider starting at 8:45
A.M. and end at 3:15 P.M (opposed to 9:00 A.M.-3:00 P.M.).
Keywords: lunch period extension, faculty attitudes, student attitudes

Table of Contents
Executive Summary...........................................................................................................6
Introduction........................................................................................................................7
Research Methods..............................................................................................................8
Task 1. Research faculty opinions on a formal policy on longer lunch periods......8
Task 2. Research students opinions on longer lunch times and bus time
interferences.............................................................................................................9
Task 3. Analyze data and develop a recommendation report................................10
Results...............................................................................................................................11
Task 1. Research faculty opinions on a formal policy on longer lunch periods11
Task 2. Research students opinions on longer lunch tomes and bus time
interferences...........................................................................................................12
Conclusions.......................................................................................................................13
Faculty positions....................................................................................................13
Student positions....................................................................................................13
Recommendation..............................................................................................................14
References.........................................................................................................................15
Appendix A: Bus Schedule..............................................................................................16

List of Illustrations
Figures
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

Survey One (Prior Experience With Extended Lunch Periods) ................11

Survey Two (No Prior Experience With Extended Lunch Period) ...........12
Student Survey Response to Lunch Extension .........................................12
Bus Schedule .............................................................................................16

Executive Summary
October 20, 2015, Jennifer Amis, APECHS Principle, formally asked APECHS
juniors/seniors to participate in a feasibility study on extending the time span of lunch at
APECHS.
At the current moment, APECHS lunch period is inly 35 minutes. As student learn to
drive, they prefer to go get food rather than get school lunches. Miss Amis has given
resources for a feasibility study for APECHS to determine the time which best works
with the class and bus schedules that can lead to an extended lunch period. The research
Miss Amis asked PAECHS juniors/seniors to perform will be a big section of the
feasibility report.
Miss Amis allowed us to conduct research that would evaluate faculty and students on
their attitudes about our lunch period and consider if the current lunchtime would be
better if extended or kept. She then asked for our findings and a recommendation to be
presented.
To conduct the research, we familiarized ourselves with the current lunch schedule and its
involvement with the bus and class times. Then created questions for a survey to be
distributed to APECHS student sand faculty.
We found that both students and faculty will most likely be open to the feasibility study.
If APECHS adopts a formal policy of an extended lunch period, APECHS will be
positive about itgiven that the school selects a good time schedule accounting for
classes and busses. In addition, we found that more than two thirds (68 percent) of
APECHS students who took our survey voiced a willingness to show up earlier and leave
later, if need be, to accommodate for the time necessary. Seventeen percent were even
willing to show up or leave up to thirty minutes more than normal. Bus and class
schedules show no interference with any new time schedules, given that we evenly spread
the extra time necessary for an extension to be in the morning and the afternoon.
These conclusions lead us to recommend that APECHS proceed with its feasibility study
on the benefits of adopting a new lunch time period.

Introduction
On October 20, 2015, Miss Amis, Principle of Arrowhead Park Early College High
School (APECHS, asked the APECHS students to be involved in a feasibility study on
the policy to extend the lunch period.
Currently, Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS), which manages all the schools in the
district, has been considering changing all the school lunch times in the district and will
oversee the bus and class time arrangements. On the basis of a high number of student,
parent, and faculty complaints, a longer lunch can improve the status of students health
and mental status. Miss Amis has allotted resources for a feasibility study to see whether
APECHS should take part of this lunch extension. The research that Miss Amis has asked
APECHS students to get done will be a section within this feasibility study.
To be more specific, Miss Amis asked us to conduct research that would answer the
following questions:
1) Would instructors be wiling to accept this change in scheduling to extend their
lunch period?
2) Would students be okay with this change to implement a longer lunch?
3) Would it interfere with the bus schedules?
Miss Amis clarified that that a knowledge on the facultys and students attitudes toward
the acceptation of the policy on a lunch extension is essential because it they showed no
interest on it the school would need to consider how whether or how to continue with the
feasibility study. Miss Amis, continued, and explained that even if the district was to
adopt the policy, the school has to be accommodated differently from normal high
schools and should be carefully considered.
These reasons are why Miss Amis asked APECHS students to share our finings and give
a recommendation on whether the school should continue with the extension policy and if
so, how would it affect the schools scheduling.
First, we wanted to understand the facultys attitude, and then the students attitude. We
wrote questions, field-tested them, then made surveys that were distributed, and then the
data was collected, analyzed, and written in this report.
We found that instructors are very likely to accept the new policy. Also, the APECHS
students would be very willing to make changes if the policy was to be adopted. Two
thirds were willing to show up and leave at different times to make sure the extension
would be possible. 17 percent were willing to show up to thirty minutes early or leave
thirty minutes early. The class schedules and bus schedules show no extra
accommodation that cant be made by the district and shows no extra difficulty.
On the basis of these findings, we will recommend that APECHS move forward with the
feasibility study of the scheduling of time extension of lunch periods for the school.

In the next sections provided, we will give extra details of our research methods, results,
and conclusion, along with a recommendation.

Research Methods
To Quire the information requested by Miss Amis, the project was fragmented into five
tasks:
1) research faculty opinions on a formal policy on longer lunch periods
2) research students opinions on longer lunch times and bus time interferences
3) analyze data and develop a recommendation report
In the subsequent discussion of how we executed each task, we describe the reasoning
that directed our research:
Task 1. Research faculty opinions on a formal policy on longer lunch periods
In performing Task 1, Miss Amis proposed a question for to answer: Would teachers
approve a policy to increase the lunch period if it means increasing their class times?
Due to the research we assessed suggested that many teachers all over the nation who
had longer lunch times are largely more satisfied with student discipline and effective
teaching. We wanted to focus a little extra on APECHS instructors who use to work at
other high schools with longer lunch periods, in order to get a better sense of whether
our teachers at Arrowhead Park are similar to those across the nation in their attitudes
and experiences. We used somewhat different surveys for the instructors who have not
had long lunch periods in their careers of teaching in other schools.
We made Staff Survey 1 for thirteen teachers who had regular experience at other
schools teaching with an extend lunchtime.
We made Staff Survey 2 for nine teachers who have not worked with an extended
lunch time period in their career as teachers at other schools.
We field tested theses surveys with two other professors at the school, one being the
English teach and the other being the math teacher. We reviewed the feedback given
and included these changes into the surveys.
With permission from Miss Amis, we sent the surveys, via e-mails, to the teachers of
APECHS.
Task 2. Research students opinions on longer lunch times
In performing Task 2, we wanted to answer the question: Would students support and
favor the extension of the lunch time if that means changing their school times as
well?
Research suggests that a majority of students across the nation not only need, but also
want a longer lunch period. Briana Bridges reports, Without enough time to eat,
students go back to class with low blood sugar and have poor focus, affecting their
academic performance. (2015).

However, not all students are the extension of a lunch period. The main complaints
made are:
They do not want to come to school earlier
They do not want to be held in school longer
They do wish to have time wasted for something educational like lunch
They dont want to mess with bus schedules
Of these concerns, minus the one relating to bus schedules, they are arguments of
luxury not arguments that really are an issue that isnt leisure based. As many critics
suggest, there is s need to get the student familiarized with a new policy on lunch
extension.
We decided that the most useful data to gain would be the scheduling of the new times
that would be acceptable and reasonable, but also the actual student attitude on the
policy specific to the kids at APECHS.
We got a bus schedule for the students who use the bus (see Appendix A, page 16) but
also developed a survey for the students regard their opinion on the time changes.
We wrote the following in the survey for the students.
As you may be aware of by now there has been suggestion of extending the lunch period so
students do not just have thirty-five minutes to get food, eat, and socialize all at once. We
wouldnt want to make any changes unless we also know the students views on this change. So
we have set up a few questions we would like to answered:
Are you opposed to extending class time up to thirty minutes at any time?
o Yes
o No
Are you opposed to extending class fifteen minutes in the morning and afternoon to
reach the sum total of thirty extra minutes?
o Yes
o No
Are you okay with the current lunchtime?
o Yes
o No
Do you want an extended lunch period, but dont want to extend classes?
o Yes
o No
Thank you!
We made this survey available to all students in school because we wanted the opinion
on all the students at the school considered.

We once again field tested this survey with a few past students of the school, took their
comments into consideration, altered the survey, then with Miss Amis permission got
the students to complete the survey in their first period class.
Task 3. Analyze data and develop a recommendation report
We drafted this report and uploaded it to the Las Cruces Public Schools website, where
all students and staff had access to the document and could give us feedback. This
feedback would be incorporated into the document and report would be revised and
then gave a final draft for the school to assess.

Results
In this section we present the following data from the research of the task, which we
conducted.
Task 1. Research faculty opinions on a formal policy on longer lunch periods
Due to student attendance, alertness, and willingness to participate in a class is
increased after getting a longer time to eat, it seems logical that lots of teachers would
like an extension. Mrs. Q, a teacher who blogs about her teaching experiences,
exclaims her opinion, I guess my wish is that all kids get 30 minutes to eat. Lunch is
about learning too; its not just filling an empty stomach (and sometimes they dont
even have a chance to do that). Lunch is a break for students to chat with their friends
in an informal setting. Learn about foods and enjoy eating. (2010).
We distributed Faculty Survey One to the thirteen teachers who taught class at other
schools with lunch times above the normal 35 minutes, Figure 1 represent the teachers
that agree and disagree with the following questions:
1. Did students that had a longer lunch period tend to arrive to class in a timely
fashion consistently?
2. Were students more alert and focused in class because they had more time to eat?
3. Was an extended lunch period beneficial to you in any way to your teaching style?
4. Do you think an extended lunch period should be put in place at the expense of 15
minutes before and after school?
5. Did you have to deal with students being late, regardless of the extended lunch
period?

Agree
Disagree

Figure 1. Survey One (Prior Experience With Extended Lunch Periods)

We distributed Survey Two to nine other faculty members who have no prior
experience with extended lunches; Figure 2 shows the disagreement or agreement to
theses three questions:
1. Do you think an extended lunch period would be beneficial to you as well as the
students?
2. Do you believe that students will abuse this longer period and still be late?
3. Do you think an extended lunch period should be put in place at the expense of 15
minutes before and after school?

Agree
Disagree

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Figure 2. Survey Two (No Prior Experience With Extended Lunch Period)
Task 2. Research students opinions on longer lunch times and bus time interferences
We received five hundred student responses to our student survey, which agree or
disagree with the questions discussed in the research methods section (page 9):

Agree
Disagree

Figure 3. Student Survey Response to Lunch Extension

In Appendix A there is copy of the bus schedule to show there is no interference with
any class times and bus times with other schools.

Conclusions
In the following section, we will show our conclusions based on the research
conducted on the couple of questions we were asked to answer.
Faculty positions
Staff who have had long lunches have been very positive on their attitudes to a lunch
extension at APECHS. Over seventy percent were willing to extend classes if that
were the necessary step forward to adopting the policy. They were unanimous that it
would be very important for students and teaches at APECHS to choose a good time
schedule for classes and busses to correlate with the extension, but suggested very
clearly that they wanted the extension if certain circumstances were fitted for it.
Simply put, our teachers with experience with extended lunches want to continue with
the policy.
Teachers with no prior experience with long lunches also showed a positive attitude
for the extension, 67 percent were willing to increase class time to accommodate the
new policy for a time extension on lunch. They feel that a long lunch would be both
beneficial to the kids learning and their teaching abilities, to be more alert and focused.
They expressed a strong desire to learn more about the policy to increase the lunch.
On the basis of these two surveys, we believe that the instructors will be very
accepting of the feasibility study. Furthermore, if APECHS were to take the new
policy the teachers appear that they would be responsive and happy about the change.
Student positions
More than two thirds of the students had no problem extending class up to fifteen
minutes before and after class in order to help make sure that there is time for the
lunch extension to be possible. Seventeen percent were willing to stay thirty minutes at
any time to ensure the policy, that is 425 kids willing to make change to help get a
longer lunch.
On the basis of this survey, we believe that the students will be accepting towards the
change. APECHS students would be willing to make change and therefore are positive
towards the policy. Student consent is a big deal for the district and therefore helps us
suggest continuing with the feasibility study.

Recommendation
We recommend that APECHS go forward with the feasibility study on accepting the
policy for longer lunches at the school. Teachers, those who worked at a school with
longer lunches and those who did not, are both sturdily holding ground that the
possibility of having a longer lunch would make students and teachers more effective and
increase student safety. Students are very willing to support the possible adoption of the
policy, especially if they are so eager to make up to thirty minutes of time to allow the
extension. The current time structure, is not great, but could improved greatly with the
new policy.

References
Bridges, B. (2015). Demand Longer Lunch Periods for School Children. Retrieved
October 23, 2015, from http://forcechange.com/82467/demand-longer-lunchperiods-for-school-children/
Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS). (2015). Shuttle Buses. Retrieved October 23, 2015,
from http://lcps.k12.nm.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Shuttle-SY-14-15.pdf
Wu, S. (2010, February 16). Time. Retrieved October 23, 2015, from
http://fedupwithlunch.com/2010/02/time/

Appendix A: Bus Schedule

Figure 4. Bus Schedule

None of the shuttles from each school are repeated and allow for different
school to transport to different places without having to go on one anothers
school schedules.