Righting a Wrong

Do you like to eat with your friends? We do! BUT … at Chickering School the fifth graders have to sit by classroom, rather than with our friends. This is based on prior Fifth Grades’ behavior. We don’t think this is fair! To see if other fifth graders felt the same way, we developed a survey to learn their opinion.

We wrote two questions:
1. Would you like the chance to sit with whomever you like? [   ] Yes? [   ] No?
2. Are you willing to sign a charter promising to obey the lunchroom rules in order to not sit by classroom?  [   ] Yes? [   ] No?

We sent a note to each of the fifth grade teachers asking permission to have the students take the survey during morning work. We appreciate the teachers letting the students take the survey.

Here are the results of the survey:
Number of percipients:
87 responses / 90 students in the grade 87 \ 90 = .96666 … 97% participation
Question 1:
84 – yes for the first question, 97%
3 – no in the first question, 3%
Question 2:
83 – yes for second question, 95%
4  – no for second question, 5%

Before giving the survey to our classmates, we decided we needed at least 75% in favor of sitting with our friends at lunch. We were thrilled to get 97%! We scheduled an appointment with Dr. Nugent, our Principal, to present our request and our data.

 We also presented a charter (draft) for all fifth graders to sign. Dr Nugent was impressed with our data and asked us to present our findings to student council two days later. Student council made some suggestions for the charter and the lunchroom rules. We incorporated these ideas into the charter and lunchroom rules. Next we presented our data to the entire fifth grade  during the October Principal Chats. The fifth grade was really excited, because there was such a high percentage of them that wanted this privilege. Dr. Nugent told us she would make a decision soon. Dr. Nugent will present her decision next week.

(We have learned that she is granting permission to sit where we like at lunch.) The privilege will begin November 7, 2011 following the signing of the charter by the entire fifth grade. We are very proud of are righting a wrong, a decision based on prior fifth grades’ actions, and appreciative of the willingness of our principal to listen to our suggestion.
We’re very happy with her decision!

Chickering Reporters: Lucy, Andrew, and Jude