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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's terrible. My brother and his family live in a district that went to a 4-day school week due to budget shortfalls and it's miserable for working parents. No onsite care provided on the day off either -- you're on your own. Most of the families in this district have two working parents, and it's common for parents to do hourly and shift work. In some ways that can make it easier (you and your spouse just take different days off so that someone can be home with your kids on Friday when there is no school) but the reality is that it means families are stretched thin with less leisure time. Plus they have the same learning loss issues everyone has from Covid, so I know my brother and SIL also feel more pressure to be doing more academic enrichment with fewer days in the classroom and concerns about reading levels and math acquisition from a year of virtual and a poorly managed hybrid schedule.

It's an example of how we are just abandoning families. My SIL and I have talked about feeling like we had kids under false pretenses, as people who had children between 2014 and 2018. It never occurred to me when I chose to have kids that my kids might only go to school 4 days a week or that there would be literally no open daycare spots because they changed the regulations for daycares and it eliminated hundreds of available spaces in the neighborhood (which happened to us). Our school aftercare literally doubled in cost when they switched vendors. It feels like it only gets worse and never better.[/quote]

I understand the day care/cost concerns but teachers and school systems are not babysitters. It's starting to feel that way. Parents are viewing schools as a place to drop your kids-teachers and admin can't do their jobs-you know teaching because we have to parent all day. We have to find a balance with schools. Teachers are quitting in high numbers and school systems are just jamming more kids in to classrooms. That leads to burnout for the teacher who stayed and learning loss also happens in these over sized classrooms. Education is broken. Families are relying too heavily on schools-it can't keep going this way.[/quote]

Are you a teacher?[/quote]

I am and I'm also a parent of three.[/quote]

Respectfully, the "school isn't childcare" trope is tired and does little to garner support for teachers. Why can't we debate whether public education, which is compulsory, should be delivered in a manner that recognizes that most families have working parents and accommodates the need for a consistent schedule for school attendance? Teachers say that childcare needs don't matter for purposes of delivering public education, yet when they are called upon to provide childcare for their own children, childcare needs are critically important. This was evident during the pandemic, but I've heard protests about unreasonable expectations for teachers to obtain childcare for their own children for years when our district debated adding school days to make up for weather closures. We can't possibly teach on those extra days, because we won't have childcare. Is it "parent your children and figure it out" as long as you aren't a teacher?

Ideally, we should all come together to figure out how to address teacher workload and burnout while also setting families up to succeed in supporting their kids' education. Just like teachers, the more maxed-out families are trying to balance their work lives and parenting duties, the less likely they are to send their kids to school ready to learn.

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It’s not a “trope.” It’s a fact. Yes, people use school as childcare. No, they aren’t entitled to that at all times and under all circumstances. Sorry.[/quote]

Entitled?  No.  But it's a really good idea.  The crime rate by youth skyrocketed during virtual school and during shortened school weeks. [/quote]

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