Why Do Professional Development Presenters Keep Talking When Lunch Just Got Delivered?
The metal rolling carts clinked into the gym doorway at 12:01 p.m. last month, during our district’s monthly middle school PD day. The scent of roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, and warm chocolate chip cookies rolled over the rows of folding tables before the caterers even finished setting up. My stomach growled loud enough that the 8th grade science teacher next to me snickered. I’d skipped breakfast to finish grading argumentative essays before the session started, and my pen had been shaking from low blood sugar for 15 minutes already.
Our presenter, Karen from the district curriculum office, didn’t pause. She flipped to the next slide about the new state-mandated formative assessment rubric, smiled, and kept talking. Someone shifted their chair so hard it scraped the gym floor. Karen nodded and said, “Just one more slide, I promise,” which we all know means at least five more minutes. I texted my friend across the room: If I don’t get a cookie in the next 2 minutes I’m staging a sit-in. She sent back a crying-laughing emoji that got her side-eyed by the principal sitting behind her.
I used to leave these sessions fuming. What kind of person ignores a whole room full of hungry people just to keep talking? I’d vent to my teacher friends over lunch, blaming big egos, presenters who love the sound of their own voice, or people who just don’t spend enough time in actual classrooms to know how badly we need a break. That all changed last spring, when I got asked to do my own PD for new 6-12 ELA teachers, scheduled right before lunch.
I spent two weeks putting together my session on small group reading rotations, timed it perfectly at home: 75 minutes of content, 15 minutes for questions, wrapping up exactly at noon when lunch was scheduled. The day of the training, the principal running the event got held up in a discipline call, so we started 12 minutes late. I stood at the front, watching the clock tick down, and tried to cut bits of content as I went. But the curriculum coordinator who asked me to do the training had explicitly told me not to skip the section on accommodating IEPs—state rules require all new teachers get that training documented, so I couldn’t cut it.
Then, right as I got to that section, the caterers rolled in. Every head in the room turned toward the door. I felt my own stomach drop. I knew everyone was hungry. I was hungry too—I’d been so nervous I skipped my own morning coffee and granola bar. But what was I supposed to do? Stop, dismiss everyone early, and leave out the required content that every one of those new teachers needed to start their year? If I did that, I’d get an earful from the district, and the new teachers would be the ones who lost out when they had to do a make-up training after work on a Tuesday. I took a breath, and I kept talking. I finished 8 minutes after lunch was delivered, apologized as soon as I wrapped up, and that’s when I got it.
It’s almost never that presenters don’t notice the lunch is there. Most of the time, we’re caught between a rock and a hard place. The whole PD day is scheduled down to the minute: 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. training, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. lunch, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. afternoon sessions. If one presenter runs 15 minutes over, lunch gets cut to 45 minutes, the afternoon session starts late, and everyone’s schedule for the whole day is thrown off. And we all know what happens if you stop talking as soon as lunch arrives: 90% of the room gets up and leaves immediately, no matter how much content you have left. No one sticks around to hear the last 10 minutes, or ask the questions they said they had.
That doesn’t mean it’s not annoying. It’s still annoying. I still get that twist of irritation when I’m hungry and the presenter keeps going. But after my own experience, I’ve changed how I handle it, and I’ve picked up a few small tricks that make it easier for everyone involved. If you’re a participant sitting there starving, you don’t have to sit and seethe. Just stand up quietly, slip out to get your lunch box, and bring it back to your table to eat while the presenter finishes. I’ve never seen a presenter care that someone does this—when I presented, I was just glad no one made a big scene that threw me off. If you really can’t focus because you’re too hungry, it’s fine to leave after you get your food; most presenters will share the slides after anyway.
If you’re the one presenting, there’s an easy fix too. Just say it out loud upfront if you know you’re going to run a little past lunch delivery. “We got a late start today, so I’ll wrap up about five minutes after lunch comes. Feel free to grab your food whenever you need it, I don’t mind at all.” That one sentence takes all the tension out of the room. For PD organizers, the easiest fix is just to schedule training to end 10 minutes before lunch is set to arrive. That buffer covers any late starts, and no one has to choose between covering required content and letting people eat.
After Karen finally wrapped up that day, I grabbed my labeled lunch box from the table by the door, found my gluten-free cookie still warm at the bottom, and sat down to eat. I walked up to her afterward to ask a question about the rubric, and she apologized again for running over. The district had added a new section on reporting assessment data the night before, she said, so she had to fit it in. I told her I got it, and I meant it.
It’s still not a perfect system. I still think there’s way too much unnecessary PD that runs right up to meal time, and we’d all be better off with more flexible scheduling. But it’s almost never the presenter’s fault. Most of the time, they’re just as hungry as you are, just stuck following the rules someone else made.
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