Of Snowballs and Consequences

Before moving to the actual topic of this post I believe it is necessary to share my background. Currently I am a Noon Duty at Lake Hood Elementary School (Anchorage School District) in Anchorage, Alaska. As a Noon Duty I supervise students in Kindergarten through Sixth Grade during lunch and recess. At its most basic level my 3 primary responsibilities are as follows (A) Referee, (B) Safety Officer, and (C) Compliance Officer. As a “referee” I provide mediation services to students who are arguing, physically hurt, emotionally hurt, or causing general havoc. In my “safety officer” role my job is to ensure students are not injured or doing something that could be considered “stupid”. I use “stupid” in quotes because it is such an ambiguous hard to define concept. Finally as a “compliance officer” I am there to ensure order, adherence to school policies and procedures, and finally discipline.

At Lake Hood Elementary School (LHES) students are not allowed to throw snow balls with the purpose of injury prevention. For clarification snow balls are defined as any chunk, ball, particle, or powder and thrown be defined as tossed, skipped, kicked, thrown, pegged, white-washed, or otherwise cause it to move. Definitions aside the story begins……...There are two noon duties at LHES, one who is the supervisor, the other one (myself) a subordinate. My supervisor always enforces the no throwing snow ball rule, I on the other hand did not always consistently enforce said rule. By not consistently I applied the following model:

K: Complete enforcement
1: Complete enforcement
2: Complete enforcement
3: Mostly enforced (>70%)
4: Partially enforced (Situation Dependent)
5: More or less zero enforcement
6: Not really an issue but more or less zero enforcement

However, use of this model came to a complete halt this last week, as I was discovered. Quite frankly, after my supervisor came out and put an end to it, I thought that was it, I'm going to face severe disciplinary action. The good news though, was that while my supervisor wasn't exactly thrilled about the situation, I was only given a stern lecture about the need to ensure consistent enforcement of rules between noon duties and warned that enforcement is mandatory. Starting immediately, I have to enforce the rule or otherwise face disciplinary action. Obviously, I will comply with the request, even though I disagree with the rule.

WARNING: Beyond this point is purely the opinion of Mark West and does NOT in anyway represent policies or procedures of Lake Hood Elementary School.


To start with here are the concepts I agree with:

[A] Complete anarchy and no guidelines whatsoever is NOT a workable solution
[B] Throwing snow or snow balls is a risky activity.
[C] Participation in this activity could result in injury to a student.
[D] That snow no matter how soft can still hurt a person.

Risk vs Reward Proposal
The rules and guidelines provided for this activity should vary upon the grade level of the student. Starting in Kindergarten I would enforce the following:

Prohibit students from throwing snowballs at each other;

Students are easily upset by getting hurt or scared;

Discourage throwing snowballs at stationary objects;

In First Grade I would enforce the following:

Discourage throwing snowballs at other students;

Recommend throwing at stationary objects;

Students are still easily upset when hurt or scared;

In Second Grade I would enforce the following:

Discourage throwing snowballs at other students;

Allow throwing snowballs at stationary objects;

Students begin to understand the relationship between

actions and results;

In Third Grade I would enforce the following:

Allow throwing snowballs at other students;

Restrict size of snowballs (small);

Restrict composition of snowballs (soft/ no-ice);

Restrict snowballs throwing method (under-hand);

Restrict throwing strength (gently);

Students are able to grasp the idea that for every action

there is an equal and opposite reaction;

In Fourth Grade I would enforce the following:

Allow throwing snowballs at other students;

Restrict size of snowballs (small);

Restrict composition of snowballs (soft/ no-ice);

Restrict snowballs throwing method (under-hand);

Restrict throwing strength (gently);

Students begin to understand that when engaging in

risky behavior the consequence is their fault;

In Fifth and Sixth Grade I would enforce the following:

Allow throwing snowballs at other students;

“Fair Play” concept development;

Yours in Play

Mark West