Would you want the school system to change to a shorter summer vacation and instead switch to a longer winter break?

[Wiltony]

I’d be in favor of less school in general. Shorter days, longer breaks, virtual classes, independent study days at home, no-homework policies, whatever. I think our society as a whole needs to find ways to improve “balance” in our lives and I’m not sure children, especially the very young ones, need to be shouldering the weight of more than a full-time job week after week. (We should reevaluate our actual jobs, too.) Perhaps doing so would help with some of the mental health issues we have, as well.

I'm opposite. More school. They're off SO MUCH (fall break, thanksgiving week, two weeks for christmas, spring break, etc.) and the time that they're in school it seems is wasted. They not only need more time at school, they need more QUALITY time at school. Too often do I hear of unprepared substitutes, mandatory study halls, and movie/party days, and seemingly endless testing weeks.

Summer learning loss is a myth.

Holy crap that's a hot take. Any data to back it up? The summer slide is real, and it is horrible.

My preference would be a year round calendar with a week off every 7-8 weeks (or at whatever interval makes it fit the 52 weeks of the year)

Amen! Year-round school's time has come. 3 months off is atrocious.

What do people do for child care with the random weeks off?

They're not random, they're scheduled. They'd do the same thing they do currently with thanksgiving, christmas, spring break, and summer.

 

[AppleDumpling]

No more kids in school, but my feeling is they have enough breaks as is, and need a traditional summer vacation. Are you referring to winter break as the time around Christmas/Hanukkah and New Years? Kids here have at least a week for those holidays, plus another week in February starting with Presidents Day, which is what we call winter break.

Then they get at least another week for Spring Break, in March or April, then usually a long Memorial Day weekend (when unused snow days get added on). Plus lots of holidays that many adults still work, including the fall Jewish holidays, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Election Day, MLK, etc., and now they’ve added Juneteenth (kids still in school here, but it inconveniently falls right at the end of the school year).

 

[Mrs.AMC]

We do both around here, shorter summers with longer winter breaks.
Total instruction days are still approx 180, with a few extras built in for unexpected days off due to weather. Our instruction day is also longer than required, I think by 30 min? After so many days it's enough to add on another extra day. I forget how many they build in, somewhere between 5-10.
Our summers go from mid May to early August
We have a week break in Oct
Almost 3 weeks in winter
A week in Spring
The kids usually get an extra day at the beginning and or end of each break where the teachers are back for a planning day. So the kids get what is a Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Monday break. Teachers will be at school that extra day.
Some years back we switched to starting prior to Labor day to early August, and added in a fall break, so our first semester is completed before winter break.
#1 reason is if we are going to get snow it's in early January, smack dab in what would be end of semester if you start after Labor day.
It really created havoc with review and exams some years. To the point that when I was in school we had one year where we were unable to complete our first semester until mid-February.
They finally reached the point where enough was enough and switched everything so it was done with by the winter break, in mid December. When kids return in January, it's a new term.

 

[tvguy]

I advocate year round school, like some California districts offer. (Not required.)

That was huge here in the early 2000's. They did it because they couldn't build schools fast enough to keep up with enrollment. Now enrollment has plunged and they are moving away from it. But here it is 12 weeks in session, 4 weeks off. So one third of the students are on vacation at any given time.

 

[Meriweather]

Our public school district is going to a modified calendar next year: 6 week summer, 2 week fall, 2 week winter, 2 week spring breaks

That's what we have here......ever since I've lived here.
Seems to work fine.

 

[tvguy]

What do people do for child care with the random weeks off?

That can be a huge challenge. One solution, at least one of the parents goes to work for the school system and requests a work rotation that is the same as their child's in session rotation.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

What do people do for child care with the random weeks off?

Typically local child care providers adapt to offer care that fits the school schedules. They go full time when schools close. Pick up/drop off when schools are open.
Around here another well utilized option is in school care run by the YMCA. They do after care at most all schools, before care for later start schools and full day care in summer and on break days. It's held in the school gym or cafeteria, whichever works best for that school.

 

[Colleen27]

Yes, yes, yes. A million times yes. We need a shorter summer break and longer fall, winter and spring breaks. Preferably aligned with the ends of marking periods instead of scattered seemingly arbitrarily through the calendar. Same number of instructional days, broken up better for less learning loss and a better range of vacation time options for families who have careers with seasonal constraints. And if they shifted the start of the year just a few weeks earlier, the semester could end before Christmas, like colleges do, instead of the kids coming back from Christmas break straight into review for midterms.

 

[barkley]

Great time for summer school - either remedial or getting ahead

districts actually offer open summer school (as in anyone can attend) anymore??? i haven't known of a district in the 2 states we've lived in while raising our kids that offered any kind of summer session k-12 EXCEPT for kids that qualify for it under 'extended school services' under their iep's and special needs programs.

when i went to school in the 60's and 70's we could volunteer to take full blown courses during summer school, by the time my kids were going in the 90's and on all we ever saw were more like 'fun camps' that were basically daycare and didn't extend past 5th or 6th grade.

I advocate year round school, like some California districts offer. (Not required.)

Six weeks of school, then a week break.
Two week break for Christmas. A three week break in July or August.

works well if daycare can be worked around it (found it much easier to find on traditional schedules). also works ALLOT better if individual districts have ALL their schools on the identical schedule-my bff/her dh work for the same district that both their kids attended k-12. there was NOT a single school year that all 4 were on the same schedule. at one point her dh and one each of the boys would share the same but that was only b/c that district didn't do year round for high school. it was a very chaotic situation.

 

[DisneyOma]

Typically local child care providers adapt to offer care that fits the school schedules. They go full time when schools close. Pick up/drop off when schools are open.
Around here another well utilized option is in school care run by the YMCA. They do after care at most all schools, before care for later start schools and full day care in summer and on break days. It's held in the school gym or cafeteria, whichever works best for that school.

What's the point of having time off from school if you get dragged to daycare instead? One of the reasons I work in education in our hometown is that I'd have pretty much the same days off as my kids. We didn't want to put them into daycare all summer, or during vacation weeks. We wanted them to be home, or playing with friends, or doing stuff in the area or even taking vacations Not sure what difference it makes for time off if the kid has to go to daycare.

 

[tvguy]

Typically local child care providers adapt to offer care that fits the school schedules. They go full time when schools close. Pick up/drop off when schools are open.
Around here another well utilized option is in school care run by the YMCA. They do after care at most all schools, before care for later start schools and full day care in summer and on break days. It's held in the school gym or cafeteria, whichever works best for that school.

Child care is VERY hard to find here, and it is VERY expensive.

 

[Disneylover99]

districts actually offer open summer school (as in anyone can attend) anymore??? i haven't known of a district in the 2 states we've lived in while raising our kids that offered any kind of summer session k-12 EXCEPT for kids that qualify for it under 'extended school services' under their iep's and special needs programs.

when i went to school in the 60's and 70's we could volunteer to take full blown courses during summer school, by the time my kids were going in the 90's and on all we ever saw were more like 'fun camps' that were basically daycare and didn't extend past 5th or 6th grade.

I’m in Toronto. Yes. We have summer school programs for many different needs.

 

[sam_gordon]

What's the point of having time off from school if you get dragged to daycare instead? One of the reasons I work in education in our hometown is that I'd have pretty much the same days off as my kids. We didn't want to put them into daycare all summer, or during vacation weeks. We wanted them to be home, or playing with friends, or doing stuff in the area or even taking vacations Not sure what difference it makes for time off if the kid has to go to daycare.

I don't think everyone can work in education to match their kids' schedule. Now, if you want to argue households don't need two full time breadwinners, that's something different.

When my kids were young, our fall break was a Thurs & Fri. Not enough time for a "big" vacation (like to WDW to take advantage of lower prices). They finally expanded it to a week, but not until my kids were in fall school sports, meaning we still can't take advantage of the week off.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'd rather have the time of the year where the weather is better than have longer time of the year where the weather is crappier. Hotter and humid vs snowy and icy is no contest.

 

[DisneyOma]

I don't think everyone can work in education to match their kids' schedule. Now, if you want to argue households don't need two full time breadwinners, that's something different.

When my kids were young, our fall break was a Thurs & Fri. Not enough time for a "big" vacation (like to WDW to take advantage of lower prices). They finally expanded it to a week, but not until my kids were in fall school sports, meaning we still can't take advantage of the week off.

Of course not everyone can live on one income or work in education. That was our choice and decision before we had kids. What's funny is that my husband was the 'breadwinner' and my income (when I went back to work after being home with the kids for 8 years) was for the extras - their activities, vacations, etc. Now he's retired and we are trying to live off my income and his pension. I'm the 'breadwinner' but what's about half the size of bread?

My point was that changing the school schedule but then putting kids in daycare makes no sense to me.

 

[Skippy918]

I wish the summer break was shorter and we’d move those extra weeks throughout the year. It would be nice to travel without paying exhorbitant prices and dealing with lots of crowds.

 

[fab1976]

My school district has balanced school year schools. There’s just a few of them in a very large district. They get 2 weeks off in October which includes Thanksgiving here (just beside Toronto), 3 weeks off at Christmas, 1week in February and 2 weeks in March. They finish the year the same as the rest of the schools which is the last weekday in June, but they go back the beginning of august and the rest go back the day after labour day. I struggle with the idea of it, but man all those extra weeks off through the year is tempting. Means you can travel at off times without the kids missing school or a teacher can take time off they usually wouldn’t be able to. A downside is the lack of air conditioning in schools here. The ones that have the balanced year have a/c. Temperatures can reach 104 on a consistent basis in august here.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

What's the point of having time off from school if you get dragged to daycare instead? One of the reasons I work in education in our hometown is that I'd have pretty much the same days off as my kids. We didn't want to put them into daycare all summer, or during vacation weeks. We wanted them to be home, or playing with friends, or doing stuff in the area or even taking vacations Not sure what difference it makes for time off if the kid has to go to daycare.

Cool. Not everyone can or wants to work in education.
Sort of one of those things you have a calling for, or you don't. Ya know?
Plus, the world wouldn't function if everyone's job was education and nothing else, now would it?
We gotta have doctors, nurses, brick layers, yada yada yada

 

[sam_gordon]

My point was that changing the school schedule but then putting kids in daycare makes no sense to me.

Except you're not changing how much they're in daycare, you're only changing WHEN. So let's say (to make math easy) you have an 8 week summer break, 1 week fall, 2 week winter, 1 week spring, maybe the new schedule has a 6 week summer, 2 week fall, 2 week winter, and 2 week spring. Still the same amount of daycare.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Child care is VERY hard to find here, and it is VERY expensive.

So no one can work? That's a shame. I've had to work since my daughter was 3. I was single and no other way to support us. Without child care we'd have been living in our car. I don't know how it can be done if it's impossible to find or pay for if found.