yard duty staff

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keannu

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1.What kind of person is "yard duty staff"? It's translated as "security". Is he a person in charge of the playground in school?
2. What does "shaken" mean here? "puzzled" or "surprised"?

go3mo-49
ex)It was spring and some 6th grade boys at a suburban elementary school were fooling around on the playground. They had discovered a great new trick. One of them would kneel down behind someone and the other would push the person over. The trick worked perfectly with
Anna. She fell over with ease. She was hurt and crying. In the process she had broken her wrist. The yard duty staff sent the shaken boys to the principal.
 
(Not a Teacher)

I've never heard of 'yard duty staff' at an elementary school. Makes it sound like a prison. I assume they're faculty assigned to watch the children in the school yard.
Colloquially, "yard" can refer to a prison's exercise yard, hence my previous comment.

'Shaken', when referring to a person, means startled and a tad frightened. The boys probably realize they're in trouble now.
 
The whole piece would only work for AmE. In BrE, we don't use "6th grade", "[suburban] elementary school" or "yard". At my primary/junior schools (which I think are the same as elementary school), a few teachers were on duty in the playground during break and lunch but we didn't have a specific term for them. I think the teachers probably just said "I'm on playground duty this morning" or something similar.

I don't know if it works in AmE, but "on the playground" doesn't work in BrE. We say "in the playground".
 
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