I read Tom’s comment with interest, about working evenings and on Saturday’s to supplement his teaching income. Wow! What a sad commentary.
It should be no surprise that our society produces some of the most under-educated students in the world! How can a person teach a full schedule, then work a second job? When does class preparation happen? One simple way we can prove that we respect and treasure our youth is by paying their teachers a professional wage.

Tom
I don’t think folks are providing reasons to NOT do this, but issues that might need consideration to implement the idea. I would hate to think something important as changes in education were made without looking at all aspects of the issue.

But, further thought about this…would the tourism industry allow this to happen on a wide-spread basis? On one hand, you spread out your income across the calendar year. On the other hand, where do you find employees when in the past you have depended on students on summer break?

JohnH, Unfortunately there was no internet 20 years ago, so we could not post this in any forum!!

— Lew Schucart
10:15 am May 19th, 2008

Oh how wrong you are, Lew….. johnh invented the internet exactly 21 years ago with Al Gore and together they ran the very first blog forum. In fact, the first blog topic ever posted was a 2 part question authored by johnh and was entitled “Should schools have year round classes, and how would that impact my perfect superior intellect?”

But really, there actually was an internet 20 years ago. I surfed it on my Commodore 64 and a 1200 baud modem.

Back to the topic…
There are pros and cons to everything. The main pro being that I think students will benefit in having a regular schedule and not 3 months off in a row where they might forget half of what they learned the previous year.

However, there are many summer activities and sports that would take a hit or just have to become after school or weekend activities. I got sent to summer camp two weeks out of the year in Lake Geneva, Wi. Summer camps would all but disappear. Year round schooling with scheduled breaks would probably be fine if everyone was doing it in sync. Scheduling vacations and activities would just fall into place eventually. But with some doing it and some not or if no one breaks at the same times, it will become a logistical nightmare, especially for parents with children who attend different schools. And also as others mention, it will make it more difficult for teachers to continue their own education, which in many cases is a requirement for continued employment. They would be relegated to taking night classes or those joke on-line courses. They already get paid too little.

To me it’s a good idea in theory, but I think it’s a bad idea for each individual school district to decide what it’s going to do.

Amy Price,
It’s the Festus R-6 school district. I beleive the plan would have to apply to all levels. They currently have elementary, intermediate, middle and high school buildings and many trailers set up for extra classrooms. Most of the school buildings are air conditioned. Although I haven’t witnessed it myself, more than one person has told me that during the change of classes, the halls of the high school are jammed with students. It can only get worse. The school enrollment has skyrocketed. Despite the housing downturn, enough young families are in place that the enrollment will not decline in the foreseeable future. A small but organized group of people have campaigned to stop a plan for a modern high school. Their main argument is that it will raise taxes too much. I think they are overlooking the fact that the costs are going to increase significantly, not because of the new high school, but because of the rising enrollment. I don’t know about the continuing education of the teachers, but I suspect part of the year round plan would be to hire additional teachers so there could be some kind of rotation.

Year round school was wonderful. My kids were always on Cycle C. At that time in Francis Howell there were 4 cycles. Three cycles were always in school at any given time (unless the district was closed like Christmas and Thanksgiving). The kids went 9 weeks on, 3 off. They were in school long enough to learn but when they started getting tired of it, there was a break. They would be home for 3 weeks. By the time, they were bored with home, it was time to go back to school. The kids were always excited knowing it was time to go back to school! When they got back to school, they spent one day reviewing — instead of the month of September that the traditional schedule demands. Every cycle had 6 weeks off during the summer. You know your schedule well in advance. So planning vacations or summer camps or whatever is pretty easy to plan — even when I had kids in high school, middle school AND elementary school. Also, when I only had kids in elementary, we could plan vacations to other parts of the country. While there, we took advantage of no crowd, lower prices and less hassles. For example, we could go to the pumpkin patches and have relaxed quality time and not worry about crowds. Now Francis Howell has only one cycle that is year round but back a few years, it was four cycles. During that time, the day cares were all set up for it. They liked it since they were always at capacity as opposed to now where they are at capacity only when the kids are out of school.
I have never met anyone who does not like year round school once they have tried it

I’m glad someone out there feels sorry for teachers working second jobs. I feel the current salary schedule for teachers in most districts is really out of wack. Starting teachers don’t make enough to live on their own and they are usually the most creative teachers. They also need to continue their education which most of the older teachers have done. The teachers with 20 years or more are making a good living. It’s too low on the top and too high on the bottom. Bottom being the best paid teachers. It needs to be evened out to where starting teachers can at least live. Teachers are now paid in 24 equal checks per year. That helps.

Suzyjax, I think you have a point about the travel industry. Fuel cost has already done that industry in. I can’t see anyone going to far until the country adjust to these fuel prices that have driven up the price of almost everything that we do.(including eat)

Any district can implement this plan and make it work. I really think they can run the district better and improve the quality of education. I doubt it will cost anymore. They run the air in the buildings all summer for support staff and administrators.

My daughter is currently enrolled at the elementary school in Festus. I voted in favor of the bond issues both times they were on the ballot.

The schools are all air-conditioned, the elementary school was the last to be retrofitted with air conditioning some 10 years ago. That’s not an issue.

The problem is the crowding. My daughter’s class, when she started kindergarten, required the addition of 4 kindergarten teachers, bringing the total kindergarten teachers to 13 for that year. Thirteen classes of 20-22 students each.

My brother is enrolled at the high school. I’ve seen the halls first hand when the bell rings. Sometimes it’s impossible to get to your next class in the 5 minute time allotment. I wish, for one day, they could line chairs up in the hallways, just one row, and allow the public to sit in those chairs while the students go about their day. Ring the bell and watch all those kids pour into the hallways, and then do it again.

Enrollment the last few years has skyrocketed due to the addition of - off the top of my head, I can think of - at least 7 new subdivisions in the district. These are not small subdivisions, and they’re very family friendly.

As far as families with children in different tracks? I think that’s something that’s being taken into consideration and trying to keep families on one track.

Oh and one more thing - Festus doesn’t have a 3 mos summer vacation. Currently, they get out of school May 27. They’re scheduled to return to school August 14. Yes, that’s 2.5 mos out of school, but keep in mind, many of the students participate in the summer school enrichment program that the district runs. That starts May 29 and ends June 26th or 27th. That leaves about 6 weeks for a “summer break”.

Lew. I have a question for you. Are you a liar or a idiot? In any event, your care taker should keep you off the internet.

To Others: The school year was set by Virginia over 200 years ago. It was to allow students to help grow cotton. FACT.

When is the last time that you have seen a kid hoeing, or weeding a cotton field? Maybe it is time to bring education into the 21st century, and change the school year.

Speaking strickly from a personal view-point as a teacher, I would have some troubles with year-round school. I would love it professionaly, but it would present some money problems for me. I work a second job during the summer months and on weekends during the year. This additional income is VERY important to me and is the main reason that I am able to afford having teaching as my profession. If the summer break were broken into smaller cycle breaks, I would not be able to continue with this practice due to the fact that no one would hire me for such short periods of time on top of which much of what I do is seasonal (handyman work/yard work/health department and pest control work). While professionaly it would be great and I think that it would be usefull for students, it would cause some serious problems for teachers like me.

I am laughing uproariously at my detractors in here. This Shawnee Indian boy retired when he was 38. My net worth has gone up by 20 percent per year. That is not exceptional, but it is a little over average.

Now to the problem of teachers not having time to take more college courses with a new school year. That is specious. You can sit at home and take courses off the internet.

I’ll add more later.