Reply to How DO we get the calendar changed?

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "How DO we get the calendar changed? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sorry for the seemingly dumb question, but when we are discussing the calendar, are we talking about trying to remove days off during the school year and thus moving the last day up vs keeping the number of days off in the school year and keeping the later last day of school? Isn't that just a shell game? How is one better than the other...ACADEMICALLY. I know if has consequences for families that don't have someone that works from home but it seems like alot of people are saying the current calendar fails students academically. How does removing some of the days off and moving the last day up improve things? Thank you.[/quote]

It's been proven by many years of research that young kids do best academically and otherwise with a predictable, consistent schedule.  They wake at the same time, arrive at school at the same time, and have the same learning routine consistently.  This is how information is best reinforced and retained.  My 3rd grader doesn't know if she's coming or going, constantly asking if there is school every day this week or not, or if she gets to come home early this day.  It's disruptive to them psychologically and a barrier to learning at their best.[/quote]

There is actually a substantial amount of studies coming out that refute this. That flexible schedules and less of a consistent routine may be of more benefit to learners. Most of the current studies have been done on college and secondary students, but I'd assume more will be done to gauge the effect on younger learners. [/quote]

I would bet money that "flexible schedule" was NOT defined in those studies as a bunch of days off including some that were unplanned. Flexible schedule in education research usually means you can get the work done on your own time as long as it's done by a certain date. Any study on college students, who are much more self-regulated learners, has zero generalizability to young elementary students.

I would not assume there will be more research on this in much younger kids because most school districts do not have a ridiculous calendar like ours. And any research that is done will probably be flawed and lacking in rigor just like a lot of other education research. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics