LEW. Congratulation, guy. This is the most important question that has ever been posted in any forum. Unfortunately, you posted it 20 years too late.

Schools are no longer in the business of educating students, they are in the business of baby sitting. The parent’s would be happy to have year round baby sitting.

It’s attitude. Singapore, the leader in the world in education, has a year round schedule, with appropriate short term breaks. Their goal is education. Ours is baby sitting. Both countries achieve their goals. Singapore in #l in the world in education, and we are arguably the best in baby sitting.

We need 12 months of baby sitting, with breaks. Parents must be made happy.

I was skeptical of the idea when I first heard that the district we moved into was on the year-round/cycle break system. But since our kids have reached school age, I wouldn’t it want any other way.

The school provides excellent before/after and cycle break daycare, which is at the school, so the kids have access to a lot of the learning tools and activities that they enjoy during school sessions. It makes having a both-parents-working scenario much more do-able, and on top of that, we are able to take vacation in summer, spring, winter, or fall instead of being limited to summer.

I think the whole country should go to this system.

Three trimesters might be good…almost a total academic immersion! Offer mini-courses, which might help to maintain student interest…and provide a student more options if there’s a personality conflict between teacher/student…which is a major obstacle with many students and definitely discourages educational growth.

But the new schedule would present hardships to working parents…and especially to parents and students in rural, farming areas.

Would likely require more class preparation for teachers, and even more study/involvement for students.

I’m glad those days are behind me!

The problem with Francis-Howell’s system is that it is only relegated to the elementary schools. It is quite the parental headache when one had kids in elementary and middle/high school. Not just childcare issues, it makes it hard to plan any type of family vaction/trip.

I would love to see the statistics on attendance figures at the middle/high school during the elementary’s breaks I am not saying kids are missing all 2-3 weeks of a break, but I would bet those times attendance is lower than any other during the school year.

I always thought this was an itneresting idea that deserved further research. One issue not mentioned is air conditioning. Until 100% of schools are air conditioned this isn’t feasible for a district. I never thought about major renovations and repairs and how that is done over the summer months.

One thing I don’t understand, one would assume if a district goes year round it is all the kids in one school. How does that solve over-crowding?

Year-round schooling has many benefits and should be implemented. Many folks believe that year-round schooling robs children of their care-free summers and puts too much responsibility on kids. I think that is one thing really missing from American kids today. Plus you can easily have year-round school without taking away from the amount of vacation time. It just needs to be broken up better. For example make summer vacation only 4-6 weeks long and take the remainder of the time and redistribute amongst the other holidays — make Thanksgiving break a week long instead of 2-3 days, add an extra week during Christmas break and Spring break, create a Fall break in Sept/Oct for a week,…. Doing this will not only keep kids refreshed throughout the year, but will keep them focused on education. I remember going back every year and you’d waste the first 4-6 weeks relearning what you should have already learned the year before. The U.S. education calendar was created back in the day to accommodate farming schedules and really needs to be updated to meet today’s demands.

I think it should be mandatory for all school districts to have year round school. It takes several weeks of school in the fall for student to get in the groove. You have to learn new names, issue text books. Any way you look at it, it takes time to get going. In the spring students get wild. The closer it gets to the last day the harder it gets for teacher to keep them on track. I retired from teaching. I can tell you that year round school would eliminate a lot of the problems. I was a shop teacher and just getting the shop ready to close in the spring and open in the fall took time. The average person that has never taught would never understand. I’m sure they all have answers though.

Cycle Schooling should be implemented everywhere possible. I do agree that any schools that are still in session in the summer shoudl have air conditioning. However I dont beleive that any school needs more than three weeks for planting.

I was an advocate for this when I was in High School at Fox. I started many arguments among my fellow students to say the least, but I still beleive I was correct. I would be curious to see how many of my peers would agree with me today?

Nothing was more difficult than trying to remember all of the steps in a long algebra problem after three months of sleeping late or working all day. The mind deserves a “reset,” but not one that lasts longer than a few weeks.

Do the teachers unions benefit or loose in some way from the implementation of this policy? Do administrators need the extended periods of time for anything? I would say that there could be a compromise on all sides that make this a beneficial schedule.

I know a teacher in the FH district and she gives praise to the system.
Sound Off Teachers!

Lew,
Pay no attention to JohnH. You are not the first Post blogger he has tried to slam with his “superior wisdom” on topic choice.

You just need to remember that some years back JohnH started a school for Inuit children. A school famous for their newspaper that not only took over the daily rag in Juneau but won many journalism awards—not limited to the Pulitzer and the Peabody.

The only difference I see for teachers is in their continuing education. Many I know take summer courses at universities around the world, not just local colleges. In addition, many educational conferences are scheduled for the summer when teachers are naturally out of school.

On the other hand, one would assume that not all schools would “break” at the same time, opening up a year-round market for those who provide conferences and continuing education opportunities.

Let’s not forget that we will need to increase the operations budget by 25% !!!