Just 10 minutes

 

Ten Minutes Isn't Just Ten Minutes

We talk a lot about time in education.

Instructional minutes. School days. Class periods. Calendars.

But we probably don't talk enough about missed time.

Consider a school day with 420 minutes of instruction. If a student misses 20 days in a school year, that's 8,400 minutes of missed instruction.

That's 140 hours.

But there's another kind of missed time that is easy to overlook: being late.

Ten minutes doesn't sound like much. The alarm didn't go off. We couldn't find a shoe. Traffic was bad. We pulled into the parking lot ten minutes late.

No big deal, right?

Except ten minutes isn't always just ten minutes.

Missing ten minutes of recess isn't the same as missing ten minutes of reading instruction. Missing ten minutes of transition isn't the same as missing the beginning of a math lesson.

Some ten-minute periods simply cost more than others.

And in PreK through third grade, those minutes are especially valuable. These are the years when children are building the foundation for reading, mathematics, vocabulary, problem solving, and the routines necessary to become successful students.

Now multiply those ten minutes.

Ten minutes late every day for approximately 170 school days becomes 1,700 minutes in one year.

That's more than 28 hours of missed school—without ever being counted absent for a full day.

From PreK through third grade, that pattern can add up to more than 140 hours of missed instruction.

All ten minutes at a time.

This isn't about blaming families. Kids get sick. Cars break down. Work schedules are difficult. Life happens, and schools should help families overcome barriers whenever we can.

But there's a difference between an unavoidable circumstance and a routine.

Small amounts of missed time don't stay small when they become habits.

We spend a lot of money and energy in education looking for ways to help struggling students: tutoring, interventions, new curriculum, summer school, technology, and additional support.

But none of those can replace the simplest academic intervention of all:

Get the child to school. And get them there on time.

A teacher can't teach a child who isn't in the room.

Days matter. Minutes matter.

And ten minutes?

Ten minutes isn't just ten minutes when it happens every day.

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