Should schools just have a "do over" year?

[lauritagoddess]

I can just imagine telling my high school senior that he’d have to repeat this year. While he’s sad to miss out on his end of year stuff and graduation, certainly not enough to repeat the year. And his private catholic school has been doing online learning for the last couple of weeks and the work is graded. TBH, he’s already accepted at college and the only concern I had about the rest of the year was his IB exams in May and the IB organization has said the exams are cancelled and they’ll base the diploma and course credit on their existing schoolwork. But wih the exception of seniors, I could see starting the next school year earlier and extending it too to make up lost time.

 

[fsjking]

I haven't read everything, but it's just a bad idea all around. Holding everyone back(talking about a theoretical everyone here) would lead to no incoming Freshmen class at colleges across the country. Also would mean a double sized Kindergarten class. That would be a double sized 1st grade the next year and so on. It would take 13 years to cycle that out. In the meantime teachers and schools would have the stress associated with having too many kids in classes. You really can't spool up and then back down for that as it's a one year situation. Schools either need to find ways to do a partial catchup the rest of the year/across the summer, and account for that in their early curriculum come fall. It'll be a struggle for a while, but nothing like redoing a year would be.

 

[Mainsail Minnie]

What about starting school a few weeks early and extending the end of the year?

That would be too expensive. Most teachers are paid for 10 months of work, so if you extend the school year, they'll have to be paid for 11 months of work. Plus an extra month's pay for all of the other staff: administration, nurse, counselor, librarian, aides, custodians, bus drivers, and of course the cost of maintaining operations (buses, lunches, utilities, security) an extra month.

There is no place for that money to come from. Districts typically operate off of lean budgets, and we're simultaneously on the verge of a major recession.

It's just not going to happen.

 

[holden]

That would be too expensive. Most teachers are paid for 10 months of work, so if you extend the school year, they'll have to be paid for 11 months of work. Plus an extra month's pay for all of the other staff: administration, nurse, counselor, librarian, aides, custodians, bus drivers, and of course the cost of maintaining operations (buses, lunches, utilities, security) an extra month.

There is no place for that money to come from. Districts typically operate off of lean budgets, and we're simultaneously on the verge of a major recession.

It's just not going to happen.

The money would have to come from emergency funding.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

That would be too expensive. Most teachers are paid for 10 months of work, so if you extend the school year, they'll have to be paid for 11 months of work. Plus an extra month's pay for all of the other staff: administration, nurse, counselor, librarian, aides, custodians, bus drivers, and of course the cost of maintaining operations (buses, lunches, utilities, security) an extra month.

There is no place for that money to come from. Districts typically operate off of lean budgets, and we're simultaneously on the verge of a major recession.

It's just not going to happen.

IDK it happens in times where you exceed your inclement weather days. I remember one year having to go something like June 5th or 6th when normally school would get out before Memorial Day it was just a particularly bad year for winter weather.

I'm sure such stuff is already accounted for in teacher's contracts. There may be a time frame though for just how many days.

And not all teachers may be paid the same way. My aunt was paid 12 months out of the year so she was still getting paid in the summer time even though actual instruction time wasn't done because otherwise she wouldn't get a paycheck during the summer.

The issue may be how many weeks are added but it's not foreign to extend the school year. That's why it was nice for all the districts when my state switched to allowing number of hours for each age group rather than straight school days (districts can choose to adopt either hours or days). This allowed them to add minutes to hours to each school day for X amount of days in order to not extend further. I don't know how that's factored into teacher's contracts but it's def. common to do this stuff.

 

[Mainsail Minnie]

IDK it happens in times where you exceed your inclement weather days. I remember one year having to go something like June 5th or 6th when normally school would get out before Memorial Day it was just a particularly bad year for winter weather.

I'm sure such stuff is already accounted for in teacher's contracts. There may be a time frame though for just how many days.

And not all teachers may be paid the same way. My aunt was paid 12 months out of the year so she was still getting paid in the summer time even though actual instruction time wasn't done because otherwise she wouldn't get a paycheck during the summer.

The issue may be how many weeks are added but it's not foreign to extend the school year. That's why it was nice for all the districts when my state switched to allowing number of hours for each age group rather than straight school days (districts can choose to adopt either hours or days). This allowed them to add minutes to hours to each school day for X amount of days in order to not extend further. I don't know how that's factored into teacher's contracts but it's def. common to do this stuff.

No, most teachers are contracted for 10 months of work. That was my point. We get paid for 10 months of work, in 12 increments, so that we receive a paycheck every month. We are still working now (just like everyone else who has transitioned to work from home), providing distance learning, so this period counts as part of the 10 months we're paid for.

Most states have (or probably will, if they haven't yet) waived the attendance requirement so that the lost days this year won't have to be made up. This was/will be done for budgetary reasons, of course.

 

[Mainsail Minnie]

The money would have to come from emergency funding.

It would have to be emergency federal funding, because states (schools are predominantly state-funded) aren't going to be able to afford it in the midst of a recession. I'm already antsy about how far in debt we're going with the trillions of dollars for other emergency measures, and I'm sure many others are, too. It seems unlikely that would get through Congress, but you never know. That is the only way the funding would work for it, though.

And that doesn't even touch the issue of the many families who won't want their kids to have an 11-month school year.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

No, most teachers are contracted for 10 months of work. That was my point. We get paid for 10 months of work, in 12 increments, so that we receive a paycheck every month. We are still working now (just like everyone else who has transitioned to work from home), providing distance learning, so this period counts as part of the 10 months we're paid for.

Most states have (or probably will, if they haven't yet) waived the attendance requirement so that the lost days this year won't have to be made up. This was/will be done for budgetary reasons, of course.

I got what you meant at least I thought I did..that's why I brought up exceeding inclement weather days. This is hardly the first time teachers would be in school more time than originally configured which is why I brought that up about number of hours versus days (as it's become easier to not have to extend when they can just add 10mins to the day for 5 weeks or whatever) and how they are paid (already configured off of 12 months of actual paychecks even if the actual pay is based off of less time..meaning it's not all that hard logistically to add more money to each paycheck if needed to accommodate this). Whenever you exceed the days and have to go over that may be reconciled somewhere or listed in the teacher's contract what happens then because it does already happen.

Many have waived that yes but this the extension of a school year isn't new and somehow schools do this all the time with buses, nurses, and all those occupations you mentioned. It's not new having to pay staff for more school days than originally configured is what I trying to convey. What would be newer to districts is the length of time you and the PP were talking about (weeks in the front and back from what I was understanding) It's not necessarily cost prohibitive nor impossible as a blanket statement; the particulars of a school district is where this part will come into play. It's probably a less desirable decision vs condensing the following school year down but I won't put it out of the list of possible solutions.

I don't know what they are going to do if our schools don't open in August which is what our governor said she wasn't going to 100% guarantee at this time so it's even up in the air as far as that goes.

 

[DLgal]

Lol...I'm guessing you don't have high school kids? As much as I hate what's happening and the fact that my senior is missing many milestones including most likely his graduation; no in no way do I think there's any way or should be anyway to have all repeat a year.

I do actually, a sophomore.

 

[DLgal]

School starts at different times in different parts of the country, which means many districts are much closer to the finish line. You can't make decisions for the entire country based on your own situation.

Thank you! Our district still has 54 days left. This is a full 1/3 of the school year.

My sister's district still has 70 days left. That is 40% of the school year remaining.

These are not insignificant amounts of time.

 

[Silvermist999]

Elementary students should just automatically move into the next grade in the fall, if they cannot provide learning materials for the younger students. As for high school students, the first semester was completed, so only the second semester that has been disrupted. Online teaching should be implemented to finish off this semester and taught into the summer months if needed. I have children in both scenarios, I am hoping our school boards start to implement something soon.

 

[DisneyTeacher]

I'm sure such stuff is already accounted for in teacher's contracts. There may be a time frame though for just how many days.

And not all teachers may be paid the same way. My aunt was paid 12 months out of the year so she was still getting paid in the summer time even though actual instruction time wasn't done because otherwise she wouldn't get a paycheck during the summer.

The issue may be how many weeks are added but it's not foreign to extend the school year.

I also yet paid 12 months of the year but I’m only contracted to work 180 days. My salary for teaching 180 days is divided by 12 and I get a check every month. I don’t get paid to not teach during the summer and cannot be brought in to work unless I’m paid extra for those days.

Situations like this are not covered in a standard contract in my state. Most teachers are already working these days in some way so to bring them back to teach more days would require more pay outside their contract.

In all my years of teaching the state has always forgiven emergency days beyond our built in days. We have never been required to add time to the end of the year or take vacation days away. They are called act of god days and are just not made up. So far all our days off for this have been covered as act of god days. I don’t know if that will be the case moving forward, it hasn’t been announced.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I also yet paid 12 months of the year but I’m only contracted to work 180 days. My salary for teaching 180 days is divided by 12 and I get a check every month. I don’t get paid to not teach during the summer and cannot be brought in to work unless I’m paid extra for those days.

Situations like this are not covered in a standard contract in my state. Most teachers are already working these days in some way so to bring them back to teach more days would require more pay outside their contract.

In all my years of teaching the state has always forgiven emergency days beyond our built in days. We have never been required to add time to the end of the year or take vacation days away. They are called act of god days and are just not made up. So far all our days off for this have been covered as act of god days. I don’t know if that will be the case moving forward, it hasn’t been announced.

Ours are def. set up differently then because they for sure can go over though I'm unfamiliar with the exact specifics into how the pay is. I never really got into the topic with my aunt (she just retired last year after 40 years)

There's built in days which if not used often results in early end of the school year but if you exceed those you have to make them up. It hasn't happened nearly as much since they allowed number hours to be allowed.

Last year the school district I'm assigned to for high schoolers at least (because the number of instructural hours or days is higher than lower levels) added 10mins to the start of each day from just about the end of Feb through the end of the school year which is around Memorial Day and they removed 1 day from Spring Break. Last year was a horrible year for winter and they used twice the yearly allottment of built in days. But before the hours were allowed and you had to go by instructural days those days would be tacked onto the end of the school year. State mandates specific time for instructural time which varies by age group.

As for as this present issue with coronavirus TBH it's going to be a mess but they are getting paid as far as I know, just don't know the other specifics as far as vacation time, etc. They are moving to online here really soon though school buildings have been closed and the teachers are working right now getting that all prepared.

 

[design_mom]

Our school is only missing 23% of the year, and switched to online lessons for which they've been issuing grades. I am not in favor of a "do over" year.

 

[DisneyTeacher]

Ours are def. set up differently then because they for sure can go over though I'm unfamiliar with the exact specifics into how the pay is. I never really got into the topic with my aunt (she just retired last year after 40 years)

There's built in days which if not used often results in early end of the school year but if you exceed those you have to make them up. It hasn't happened nearly as much since they allowed number hours to be allowed.

Last year the school district I'm assigned to for high schoolers at least (because the number of instructural hours or days is higher than lower levels) added 10mins to the start of each day from just about the end of Feb through the end of the school year which is around Memorial Day and they removed 1 day from Spring Break. Last year was a horrible year for winter and they used twice the yearly allottment of built in days. But before the hours were allowed and you had to go by instructural days those days would be tacked onto the end of the school year. State mandates specific time for instructural time which varies by age group.

As for as this present issue with coronavirus TBH it's going to be a mess but they are getting paid as far as I know, just don't know the other specifics as far as vacation time, etc. They are moving to online here really soon though school buildings have been closed and the teachers are working right now getting that all prepared.

It’s my understanding we cannot add days beyond the last day on the calendar. In other words, I always book a vacation for the day after our last day of school with no risk of the year being extended. We have gone over our allotted emergency days several different years (last year we used nine emergency days and only built in the required five) and have never been required to add days or time to a school day.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It’s my understanding we cannot add days beyond the last day on the calendar. In other words, I always book a vacation for the day after our last day of school with no risk of the year being extended. We have gone over our allotted emergency days several different years (last year we used nine emergency days and only built in the required five) and have never been required to add days or time to a school day.

No I got ya on that for your area

I was speaking about the differences in the above quote of mine and what information you gave about your area which differs.

It's a way of life here in my area the adding days or hours.

For informational purposes if it makes more sense here's my state's law which I know from your comments differs from your area:

"not less than 186 school days for pupils attending kindergarten or any of the grades one through 11 and not less than 181 school days for pupils attending grade 12."

"Subject to a policy developed and adopted by the board of any school district, the board may provide for a school term consisting of school hours. A school term provided for in a policy adopted under this subsection shall consist of:
(1) For pupils attending kindergarten, not less than 465 school hours in each school year;
and (2) for pupils attending any of the grades one through 11, not less than 1,116 school hours in each school year;
and (3) for pupils attending grade 12, not less than 1,086 school hours in each school year."

So a school district may find themselves needing to make up the time somewhere. If they've adopted the number of hours they may add minutes or hours to days to avoid extending, if they are by days they may remove days if they can from spring break (occurs mid-March) or add days to the end of the school year; typically they don't want to remove the whole spring break but I do remember one year growing up (long before you could switch to hours rather than days) they removed the whole spring break because it was just an awful weather year.

All of the above is under normal circumstances no one knows what they'll think about doing due to this virus.

ETA: Again not disputing what it is in your area though

 

[Pooh2]

No.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

Definitely not! It wouldn't be fair to many students and would have too many issues. Colleges wouldn't have enough incoming students to justify having their full staff teaching freshmen courses= professors laid off/less money. Many HS seniors have already received acceptance letters for college in the fall, and it would be very unfair to then tell them they have to spend another year in HS. Then what? Do they have to re-apply and possibly not get in the following year? HS seniors that already have plans to join the military after graduation would be delayed a year, which would have implications on our military readiness.

Holding everyone back would make all students a year older when they graduate. That's a year less earning potential as an adult since they'd be set back a year.

Most schools do not have the facilities nor the teachers to accommodate double the kindergarten students (current+incoming). Even if they could get additional teachers and had the funding to pay them, many schools do not have extra classrooms to accommodate basically another grade's worth of students. It just would not be possible for most schools, so that would likely result in those incoming kindergarteners having to wait another year. That would be a never ending issue and they'd have to change the age to 6 for kindergarten to make it work. For those kids that just miss the age cutoff (like my DS who missed it by 3 days), that would leave some kids turning 7 within the first few days or weeks of kindergarten, and not being able to start college until they are 20. They'd be turning 18 just weeks into their junior year! Extending off of that, kids already in the school system now that just missed the age cutoff would be in the same position. I imagine some Juniors and seniors would just drop out of school if told they had to repeat the year due to this.

I do feel badly for the kids who are struggling and so not have the help at home/ability to succeed at home for whatever reason. I hope that schools can find a way to work with these students, but I don't think the answer is to hold everyone back.

 

[mousefan73]

We are in Germany, Bavaria and our school goes until July 31st. so there is hope they go back.. We have 2 weeks Easter break and then Two weeks again beginning of June.. I would be all in if they cancel those two June weeks break and make -up school but that might not be possible.

I was told that all kids will get a passing grade to the next year's level. Here is is somewhat normal that a kids repeats a class anyways by choice. I would say about 4 kids per year do this.. better to repeat than go down to a "lower" school.. OUr system is differnt.

anyways.... one PP mentioned her kids almost failing science etc.. IMO subjects like science, music, history, etc.... dont really matter in the realm of things.. school should just give a passiing grade. If that student improves their grade or not, doesn't really matter long term. Maybe for GPAs just make the grade neutral.

We as parents need to make sure our kids stay up to date are things like math, foreign languages, reading/language.. these are things that build up year over year.

I also just having kids read, read and more read.. make a big difference. especially for new readers.. easy for parents just have them read out loud to you... I have older kids, so I am making them read on history, sciene topics on their own...


A friend of mine has a kids in the Chicago CPS system , a freshman. and was told that what grades they get now from homeschooling homework can only help their grades, but not make their grades worse.

having a complete repeat as OP said would not be possible.. not only would you have colleges with no freshman, but also kindergarten kids would not start first grade and that would be devastating.
Now had this virus started in August and ran for months,, then would could be having a new discussion.

 

[Colleen27]

Thank you! Our district still has 54 days left. This is a full 1/3 of the school year.

My sister's district still has 70 days left. That is 40% of the school year remaining.

These are not insignificant amounts of time.

Out of curiosity, I counted down our year. We have 44 days left. We're a non-public school, so we don't have testing, but the public schools have the same amount of time left and would have seen 12 of those days disrupted by state testing. Seniors, 8th graders and public school 6th graders lose another 4-5 for class trips. K-5 in the public and K-8 at our school lose a day for field day, and we lose another for the school picnic. In the public schools, the last four days are half days (for finals at the middle/high school level, basically just "play" days at the elem level but necessary because of shared bus routes). So the amount of missed class time varies by grade and school, but on average it is around 30 days. It doesn't seem worth having everyone repeat a 188 day school year because of those 30 days, even for the schools that can't mandate online learning or give credit for the learning they're doing during this time.