'More recess!' KUSD student interrupts contentious school board meeting with plea

 

KENOSHA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- School board meetings these days are filled with emotion and passion, especially when districts are deciding when or if they should switch to virtual learning like Kenosha Unified School District did at its meeting earlier this week.

About an hour and twenty minutes into the meeting, near the end of a lengthy public comment section, 9 year old Ronan Roochnik stepped to the mic.

"My name is Ronan and I think that students should have a little bit more recess," said Roochnik to the KUSD school board and the members of the public both in the room and watching virtually.

"I felt like I wasn't going to get taken seriously," he said the next day. "Everyone was talking about COVID and I was worrying about recess."

Ronan is a 4th grader at KTEC (Kenosha School of Technology Enhanced Curriculum). His dad, Sam Roochnik, is a high school math teacher in KUSD. Before Ronan spoke, his dad told the board he encourages his students, and his son, to take part in the process.

"Out of seven hours a day, in my grade, I only get 15 minutes of recess," Ronan told the board. "I don't think it's enough! I think we should have about 10-15 more minutes to be able to go outside and play."

What would he do with that extra time?

"I would do what I usually do," he said. "I play with my friend, Elias, and we throw around a frisbee. It's purple and it's like, one of those frisbees that doesn't have a middle in it. We call it the purple froot loop."

Ronan closed his message to the school board saying: "I know that if I were you, or you were me, you'd say the same thing."

He says his next step is to just wait, because he doesn't get to make the decisions.