4 Day School Weeks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

Allow me to translate I need daycare M-F for 7+ hours.

School has been 5 days a week since before you were born. Did you call it daycare back when you were in school?

The school day was not as long as the day is now. The teachers also weren't dealing with entitled parents like yourself.

I was in school from 9:00 - 3:30 in ES. My ES children are in school from 9:20 - 4:05. It's not that much longer of a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People will leave Fairfax for other local locations that offer 5 day a week education. Why pay for an expensive house here when we can move next door to Loudon and have our kids in school 5 days a week.

Silly since if they are that mobile they can pay for extra care/tutoring or private. I would think tutoring would be preferable. More hours at school will not improve things and may cause students more stress. If schools and some parents do not or cannot address the discipline/behavioral issues, then going 4-days may be more productive.

Schools need to focus on delivering quality education not what is best for parents which is secondary at best. Other things like before/after school care should be handled separately either by family or non-school govt department.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

Allow me to translate I need daycare M-F for 7+ hours.

School has been 5 days a week since before you were born. Did you call it daycare back when you were in school?

The school day was not as long as the day is now. The teachers also weren't dealing with entitled parents like yourself.

I was in school from 9:00 - 3:30 in ES. My ES children are in school from 9:20 - 4:05. It's not that much longer of a day.

But back in the day we also had much more recess which allowed us to focus better. Class antsy? Let’s take a walk outside and regroup. Kid being disruptive? Send the kid (not the class!) out of the room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

Allow me to translate I need daycare M-F for 7+ hours.

School has been 5 days a week since before you were born. Did you call it daycare back when you were in school?

The school day was not as long as the day is now. The teachers also weren't dealing with entitled parents like yourself.

I was in school from 9:00 - 3:30 in ES. My ES children are in school from 9:20 - 4:05. It's not that much longer of a day.

Okay. I bet you were home still before 4. We have kids getting home at 5 due to busses being late. Kids are done by 3:00. So the last hour is a wash for most classrooms that are late ES. No kid should be leaving school past 3:45, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d like to hear more about how a 4 day workweek has helped with student success. The rest of the world has a 5 day school week. Why should we be a guinea pig. No thanks.

and what do you think large classrooms or long term subs are doing to student success. Lol. You still don’t get it.

Large classrooms are not necessarily a bag thing. I was in two 50+ student classes in late elementary school and I learned a lot. I loved school the most those two years. It was truly amazing. It was experimental. Other classes had 30 kids. My parents generationhad 50-60 kids in rooms that would be fire code violations today. I have classroom pictures of their classes in parochial grade school. My mom’s public HS had 5000 students and the school had a morning school and an afternoon school so only 2500 in the building at the time. My elementary school also had a track system so that only 3/4 of the students were in the building at a time. This also worked well to deal with over crowding without building schools unnecessarily. They did build some new ones quickly but could not keep up with growth. (They later went to a traditional calendar and parents were pissed that students were in trailers.)

BUT you have to have certain controls in place to make those things happen successfully.

My point is that out of the box ideas like 4 day weeks can work well if there is the support for it. The status quo can’t be maintained forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d like to hear more about how a 4 day workweek has helped with student success. The rest of the world has a 5 day school week. Why should we be a guinea pig. No thanks.

and what do you think large classrooms or long term subs are doing to student success. Lol. You still don’t get it.

Large classrooms are not necessarily a bag thing. I was in two 50+ student classes in late elementary school and I learned a lot. I loved school the most those two years. It was truly amazing. It was experimental. Other classes had 30 kids. My parents generationhad 50-60 kids in rooms that would be fire code violations today. I have classroom pictures of their classes in parochial grade school. My mom’s public HS had 5000 students and the school had a morning school and an afternoon school so only 2500 in the building at the time. My elementary school also had a track system so that only 3/4 of the students were in the building at a time. This also worked well to deal with over crowding without building schools unnecessarily. They did build some new ones quickly but could not keep up with growth. (They later went to a traditional calendar and parents were pissed that students were in trailers.)

BUT you have to have certain controls in place to make those things happen successfully.

My point is that out of the box ideas like 4 day weeks can work well if there is the support for it. The status quo can’t be maintained forever.

Curious where you grew up. We also did the track system for some schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People will leave Fairfax for other local locations that offer 5 day a week education. Why pay for an expensive house here when we can move next door to Loudon and have our kids in school 5 days a week.

Silly since if they are that mobile they can pay for extra care/tutoring or private. I would think tutoring would be preferable. More hours at school will not improve things and may cause students more stress. If schools and some parents do not or cannot address the discipline/behavioral issues, then going 4-days may be more productive.

Schools need to focus on delivering quality education not what is best for parents which is secondary at best. Other things like before/after school care should be handled separately either by family or non-school govt department.

So what will happen... parents who can afford it will just enroll their kids in a 5th day of education - whether that is sports, arts, chess, etc. Parents that can't afford it will either a) leave kids home who are really too young to be home or b) have to lose income when they can't work that 5th day.

This is privilege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d like to hear more about how a 4 day workweek has helped with student success. The rest of the world has a 5 day school week. Why should we be a guinea pig. No thanks.

and what do you think large classrooms or long term subs are doing to student success. Lol. You still don’t get it.

Large classrooms are not necessarily a bag thing. I was in two 50+ student classes in late elementary school and I learned a lot. I loved school the most those two years. It was truly amazing. It was experimental. Other classes had 30 kids. My parents generationhad 50-60 kids in rooms that would be fire code violations today. I have classroom pictures of their classes in parochial grade school. My mom’s public HS had 5000 students and the school had a morning school and an afternoon school so only 2500 in the building at the time. My elementary school also had a track system so that only 3/4 of the students were in the building at a time. This also worked well to deal with over crowding without building schools unnecessarily. They did build some new ones quickly but could not keep up with growth. (They later went to a traditional calendar and parents were pissed that students were in trailers.)

BUT you have to have certain controls in place to make those things happen successfully.

My point is that out of the box ideas like 4 day weeks can work well if there is the support for it. The status quo can’t be maintained forever.

Sorry, a class of 50+ is not going to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

How will is stay open if you have no teachers?

Artifical Intelligence, plus some people to make sure the kids staying on task.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

How will is stay open if you have no teachers?

Artifical Intelligence, plus some people to make sure the kids staying on task.

Faces on a screen with classroom monitors…didn’t we already do that and DCUM hates it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

How will is stay open if you have no teachers?

Artifical Intelligence, plus some people to make sure the kids staying on task.

Faces on a screen with classroom monitors…didn’t we already do that and DCUM hates it?

won't have a choice if we don't have teachers and parents don't home school.

[Anonymous]

Exactly. What is your solution to fix the lack of qualified teachers? 4-day school weeks does NOT sound like a good plan for students or families...so we need (a) higher teacher pay, and (b) more teacher actual planning/grading time (not obligated to meetings, required county PD, etc.). Respect for teachers and better parenting would help but cannot be regulated, but teacher pay and planning/grading time can.

Advocacy. I don't quite get why this has to be argued for, but apparently it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools needs to be open 5 days a week!

How will is stay open if you have no teachers?

Artifical Intelligence, plus some people to make sure the kids staying on task.

That is probably the funniest thing I've read on this forum to date... Or the stupidest... It's hard to say, but it is very entertaining - either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should just go back to early release Mondays.

They never should have taken that away to begin with. They did it because of selfish parents who view school as free daycare. The same type of parents who are causing all of the current problems. Some people should truly never have kids.

You mean parents who have to work to pay their bills and live in the area? Or the parents who work multiple jobs to afford living in the area and provide for their kids? Based on your comment, the only people who should have kids are people who can afford after school care or one parent who can stay at home.

I was in school in the 80’s, we went 5 days a week and had an early release day once a month. The idea that kids attend school 5 days a week for a full day is not exactly new or novel.

Do you think that teachers are not parents who have to work to pay their bills and live in the area? Or parents who work multiple jobs to afford living in the area and provide for their kids? Because they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people really believe you can take away 7 hours every week and there will be no change in student learning? If this is the case, we have so much more to worry about.

Do you think they're learning in those 7 hours. So much busy work, not learning is going on in schools these days. Lots of wasted time.