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extending the school year
The morning update just told me that they are considering extending the Maine school year to 185 days from 180 and mandating that the school year not start until Sept 1st at the earliest. It would apply to all public schools including UMS and CC.
Now I don't mind working an extra 5 days, but I see problems with making a not starting in August rule.
First, I'm a County girl. We used to start around Aug 15 to get 3 weeks off for harvest in mid Sept. I know that many districts are cutting back on harvest break, due to lack of children participating, but I feel that it should remain a local decision.
Second, we were going to get out June 9th w/o snow. Now it is the 15th, with no more snow. Add 5 more days to that for the extension and you are looking at June 22. In a really snowy year it might become standard to be in school til Independence Day!
This year we went to school 4 days in August, so you would have to add those four days to the end of the year too, if you were going to only go to school in Sept. June 22 becomes June 28.
btw- Summer school starts July 5 (the week after the theoretical school year would end), giving the Title 1 and SPED kids exactly August off.
At this rate those innocent 5 days make me want to say, why not just have year round school? Prepare the students for the workforce and hush up all the people who say teachers don't work enough to earn their pay.
Re: extending the school year
What I want to know is why do all the schools in New England get a week of vacation in February? No where else in the country does this. You already get a week of vacation at the end of December and the middle April, is it really so much to go to school for three and a half months without a week off in the middle?!
I went to high school in VA where it is (or at least used to be) state law that school can't start until after Labor Day. School usually ended the third week in June. (The law does not apply to colleges. I went to a state college and our fall semester started the last week in August; spring sememster ended in May.)
I wouldn't have a problem going to year-round elementary and high school. The need for children to have the summer off for harvesting crops isn't much of a need anymore. Continuous school (with a few smaller breaks during the year) would also reduce all the re-teaching that happens every September.
Yeah, I have no idea why I am not at work right now. I know I could use the money and the kids (especially the ones I work with) could use the instruction.
We had an appalling 2 weeks off for Christmas this year. They blamed it on kids at MCI needing to go home. I call BS.
I always figured summers off were related to oppressive heat in The South and often wonder why the NE doesn't have winter off and summer in school. Going February - November, with Dec/Jan off, rather than July/August. That would eliminate making up a bunch snow days and make planning easier on parents.
But with indoor climate control there is no need to close any whole months of the year.
Cultural change is slow.
I can answer this (at least from the Massachusetts perspective). My mom (a retired teacher) said February vacation started in the 1970s with the energy crisis - it was a way to save on energy since it costs more to heat a school in February than in June (the end of school was pushed back a week). Why it lasted, I'm not sure.
I actually saw somewhere (on facebook or on TN somewhere) where a few other schools outside New England were either changing to Feb/ April breaks or 2 weeks in March... but I also know that a lot of the older schools are not equipped to deal with the summer heat-- my sister teaches middle school in one of the wealthiest communities in MA and the heat kills her classroom (granted, she teaches 7th grade special ed-- mostly boys-- mostly whom haven't discovered deodorant. Gross.).
I think starting before labor day is all around better for everyone-- gives them a few days of school, then a break for the holiday, and they get some of the first few day stuff taken care of. A lot of the MA schools start before labor day since we get the Jewish holidays off.
Also, my cousin did the year-round school thing in CA- I think it lasted a year- and they stopped it. It just didn't work well for them. She would have 3 months school and then 2 weeks break or something like that. I don't think it worked well with parents schedules for some reason.
I agree that the February break is ridiculous (especially in a climate that sees so many snow days in the winter), and energy savings is no reason to keep our kids out. (In Marin County -- just north of SF -- they get that break, too, for "Ski Week"!! That's what you get in one of the richest counties in the country...you have to give the kids off so that their parents can take them on their ski vacations.)
I am, however, really against the year-round schoolyear. I'm a big believer that school is not the only place to learn, and that summer is a great time for kids to experience the world in other ways, be it through summer camps, vacations with families, self-exploration, etc. It's also a BREAK. I hated school as a kid and would've been miserable without summer break. (And I was a high-performing student, so it had nothing to do with struggles. I have just always placed autonomy at a very high value.) From a practical standpoint, I also needed the summer for summer jobs...and I know many kids who couldn't have gone to college if they hadn't had the summers to work and save money.
Hmm, as a teacher I am biased in that for us parenting teachers, our vacations are the only time we get to spend with our kids. biased, I told you.
But, that said, my cousins in Northern Cali all went to school full year. It isn't as intimidating as it sounds. They were experiencing the problem that although they have vacations, those become the most expensive times to travel, so families were pulling their kids out the week before or after vacations for their family vacations. Now they go year round.
I think its something like this: They get a week at Thanksgiving , two weeks at Christmas, a spring break and then a bunch of weeks off for the summer. Seems not bad, I would just fear for the kids who need to work. I know that in HS I worked a lot every summer and that paid for me to have a car, gas, and the equipment I needed for sports. We had a big family and money was tight, so for me to play all the sports I did I worked in the summer. My mom never let us work during the school year because school was our focus.
Summers are basically reduced to nothing now anyway. I have worked in Maine, NH and Mass and have many times had summer start July 1st due to snow, returning at the end of August. Neither the kids or teachers were able to work much those summers.
I am a County girl as well, and by the time I graduated in 05, harvest break was almost pointless. Yet, they still have it for some reason. I went to school in Presque Isle, and there are plenty of farms there, but not many that kids can work on. Almost all of the farms use equipment to harvest now, not potato pickers, and the kids are not even old enough to work on most of that equipment. While it was nice to have the break, I can't see why they haven't cut out that 3 week break yet, pushing the start of school back to September.
While I'm not sure how I feel about the extra 5 days proposal, or about eliminating February break, I do think that extreme shortening (or elimination) of summer break is not something I agree with. Kids need time to be kids. To travel with their families if they want, and to learn things outside of the 3 R's. I think year round school would overwhelm many children, and set them up for failure.
Edit because I can't spell