Story here.



I bet this upsets the parents.

Daycare providers probably like though.

Hmm. I don't like it. This isn't Mexico or wherever else the article mentioned...blah.

I DO think, that high school should start earlier and middle school should start later. What kind of crap is 9 to 3:30 high school, with middle school starting at like 7:20? YUCK! Sorry, that might be considered a hijack or topic changer or whatever.

I thought the same thing. Why should the wee lil kids have to get on the bus in the dark real early and the big kids get to sleep in. Ahhhh the big kids can take care of themselves. The wee ones need a mummy or daddy to get them off to school. If the parents have to wait until the bus comes after 8 when the heck do they start work?? get the wee ones outa there and make it to work on time. As to the 4 day week. Yes it would be an inconvienient thing but there we go again.....worrying how something will neg. impact a few. If the savings are there for 4 day weeks do it. Ahhh Fridays off.....

I didn't read the article, don't schools have to go so many days? 180. Would this make the school year longer, or the days longer, or what?

Actually in MD, schools have to be in session a number of hours. If you remember, a number of years back after having tons of snow days, the school day was lengthened to make up the time. So as long as the number of hours are met, it seems to me that any configuration of days would meet the criteria.

Actually just the opposite happened... the WCBOE WANTED to extend the school hours and it was told it could not...
It is mandated that they attend 180 days.... no a set number of hours....

I do remember being extremely angry as a student when they tried to tell us we would have to go longer.

I think half days count as full days also. So it can't be hours.

I was employed by the school system when this happened. I DID WORK LONGER HOURS AND THE STUDENTS WENT LONGER. It was a long time ago.

Ah, I wasn't around a long time ago. They were trying to do it about 8 years ago though I think, when I was in high school, but they decided not to.

http://www.wcboe.k12.md.us/content/pc_studentcal.cfm

I was thinking about the incident in the last 3-4 yrs... I have only lived in MD 10 yrs...

I think it was 2003, wasn't it? Seems like my son was in 6th grade maybe? If not it was 2002...it was 5-6 years ago..when we had that 24" snow storm & they decided to cancel school all week..

Yeah, I remember that. They added like an hour to an hour and a half onto the school day.

Not sure how I feel about doing the 4 day thing. I also heard that WV has approved year round schooling. Not sure when it will go into effect, though. I think they are going to go, like 3 months & then off 3 weeks or something like that.

Now THAT idea I don't think I like. How in the world would you do daycare for younger kids? I am sure there would need to be a lot of rescheduling & compensating by daycare centers & school run camps. But, Oy! The headaches for full time working parents!!!

I can tell you first hand what happens! The parents end up putting the kids in private schools or moving to an area where the 5 day 180 day school year is used! The parents about go nuts trying to 'co-ordinate' their work and the 'kiddies' schedules..as well as the daycare workers end up crazed! When you hire a person for 3 weeks on full-time and then 6 weeks off and then 3 weeks--you don't get any takers...It bit the dust within 2 years as the parents were screaming by then!!

When I was a student I would forget things over the weekend. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving were horrible, students would come back and have to be retaught everything. 3 weeks off is not ok, unless it is in between semesters. Only high school is split into 2 semesters though (here) so that wouldn't work no matter how you try to fit it. Students would forget too much.

If you were thinking of mentioning that 3 months off for summer is a long time: I think it's ok to forget things over the summer because you are taking entirely new classes when you return. You don't need to remember too much of what you learned the year before in my opinion.

Very good point, Ith... It's been so long since I've been a student, I was only thinking of the craziness it would cause ME!