Re: New York State Ed Cracks

[Juanita Doyon <Jedoyon@AOL.COM>]

In a message dated 2/23/02 8:26:12 PM Pacific Standard Time,
kber@EARTHLINK.NET writes:


> I am strongly of the opinion that - assuming that we could restructure
> schools so that what occurs during the time school is in session is far
> more meaningful than much of what occurs now, especially the preparation
> for tests - a structure of the year that is broken into periods of perhaps
> 6 weeks on, two weeks off, or if the 6 weeks is too short, 9 weeks on, 3
> weeks off, would make far more sense than what we have now.  Okay, I've got
> 4 weeks to account for - and I;ve only got 36 weeks ialthough that would
> equal 180 days, minus the holidays).  I'm too tired to explore all the
> alternaitives, but youg et the picture.  After about 3 weeks, I think we
> begin to see the loss of retention of learning.  And most people really
> don't know what to do we breaks of longer than 3 weeks, short of dumping
> the kids into a summer camp (for 8 of the 9-10 weeks of summer?).
>
>

EGAD!!!!!  Let's just stop this YEAR-ROUND-SCHOOL talk right here (not
really, you can write all you want about it, but I happen to be experienced
in year round school.)

First of all, there is nothing wrong with cheap high school labor and
allowing kids to have summer jobs. Some families (probably the majority) rely
on teenage employment to help ease the costs of their big kids.  Ours sure
does!!!

Now, as for Year-Round-School-- YUCK!  Where's the down time?  When is the
consistency for kids?  There is some loss of learning over the summer of
school taught subjects.  There is also the opportunity for enrichment for
students who need it.  There's nothing wrong with optional summer school
sessions.  Our district did year round school for 8 years for elementary and
junior highs.  It wears out your buildings, your staff, your sanity.  Of
course ours was multi-track for reasons of overcrowding, but I don't see
anything wonderful happening in the area of funding to allow that schools
would ever operate year round on a single track.  California is the poster
child once again for YRS.  We studied it again, when we were failing bonds
and our district didn't want to  bite the bullet and change boundaries to
even out elementary enrollment.

I attended YRS in 9th grade.  It was fine, because I got the summer off
before heading to HS.

Schools need to utilize the time they have better before they take over the
rest of everyone's lives.  Any change from tradition is paddling upstream
with parents.

My kids love summer.  I love summer.  Most of the families I know love
summer-- no matter what their income.  People plan for breaks that are
traditional-- one way or another.  We don't need to throw more on again /off
again schedules at them.  We need to firm up the year, do teacher education
in summer, cut out these stupid mid-winter breaks, stop the 3 weeks of
rescheduling for WASL testing (or whatever), etc....

And, by the way, I'll bet a whole lot of schools don't have air conditioning
anyway.  We're just upgrading our systems so they meet 20th century standard
this year, and we're a fairly decent school district.  When we did
year-round-school, there was a rule that if it got to 80 before noon school
was canceled.  Not too many of those here in Western Washington.

And that's all I have to say about that-- for now.

Juanita