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

[nw6675]

I homeschool so obviously we have complete flexibility, but we decided to teach during July and have a break from Thanksgiving to New Years going forward. It was so hot in July this year that we could not go anywhere.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

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.

When parents work full time, for whatever reason they work full time, it's not changing anything of significance. It only changes the structure/facility where they spend the day, be it school or other care provider. Nor is the number of days in school or the number of days in care changing. It’s only shifting

 

[tvguy]

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.

Well, you do touch on a second issue the past two years. People HAVE had to stop working due to lack of affordable child care. Or fight with employers to remain on remote work.
For us, we depended on Grandparents 30 years ago when our kids were young. And today, our kids are depending on Grandparents.

 

[mrs. magoo]

My school was opened in 1905 - that building becomes hotter than the surface of the sun the last month of school in June. Air conditioning is rare in our buildings. There is no way I want to be there in July and August. I don't know of any schools that have 3 months off. We have 9 to 10 weeks depending on when labor day falls. I don't think 6 weeks is enough of a break. Here in Western NY we still have February Break but I would be in favor of dropping that to a long weekend and putting the extra days during Xmas or Spring Break. The weather can be so terrible in the winter and even spring that to give up glorious summer days would be terrible.

 

[prairie_girl]

US summer break is already too short, I vote to keep our summer and winter breaks the same. We get two months for summer break and two weeks around the winter holidays.

 

[NannyBeBe]

We start school the first week of August and end in the last week of May, so we have a two-month break in the summer. We have one week off in March and one week in October. I think it works well.

 

[tvguy]

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.

Here is some background. Lack of child care is apparently a national problem.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/01/economy/child-care-wells-fargo-labor-force/index.html

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/06/1084...abor-shortage-means-for-child-care-in-the-u-s

https://hechingerreport.org/how-to-...e-college-transportation-and-intense-support/

 

[Colleen27]

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.

It is the same around here. When I was younger, there was the option of taking certain required courses like gym, art, etc. over the summer to free up time for academic electives during the school year, but I haven't heard of that being offered anywhere around me now. Summer school is for kids with special needs who get year-round support and for "credit recovery" (kids who failed classes and need to make them up to graduate on time).

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

But for those kids, that's how summer is now. So it would just be shifting the "when" of childcare needs, not the "how much". And as someone who was in a childcare program all summer through elementary and middle school, I think a lot of kids would appreciate that time being broken up as well. For the first few weeks of every summer my brother and I were excited for summer latchkey because it meant field trips and activities and seeing friends we didn't see much of during the school year, but by about a month in, we more or less hated it because of how repetitive it became. So spending half as long there in the summer with some different-season stretches during shorter breaks has some appeal. It would probably make hiring more difficult for the centers offering that type of care, though, because the summer program was staffed largely by college students home on break. Two-week temp workers during the school year would be harder to come by.

 

[tvguy]

It is the same around here. When I was younger, there was the option of taking certain required courses like gym, art, etc. over the summer to free up time for academic electives during the school year, but I haven't heard of that being offered anywhere around me now. Summer school is for kids with special needs who get year-round support and for "credit recovery" (kids who failed classes and need to make them up to graduate on time).



But for those kids, that's how summer is now. So it would just be shifting the "when" of childcare needs, not the "how much". And as someone who was in a childcare program all summer through elementary and middle school, I think a lot of kids would appreciate that time being broken up as well. For the first few weeks of every summer my brother and I were excited for summer latchkey because it meant field trips and activities and seeing friends we didn't see much of during the school year, but by about a month in, we more or less hated it because of how repetitive it became. So spending half as long there in the summer with some different-season stretches during shorter breaks has some appeal. It would probably make hiring more difficult for the centers offering that type of care, though, because the summer program was staffed largely by college students home on break. Two-week temp workers during the school year would be harder to come by.

Summer school programs are all over the place here. I don't think the district I live in even offers summer school anymore except special needs students like you mentioned. I always took summer school as a kid. Usually fun classes.
My kids went to Catholic High School and they required to take summer school for 3 of the 4 years there were there. That is how the school got 5 years of Math, Science and English into 4 years.

 

[kyton]

Here in Australia our kids’ school year looks like this:-

2022 school year
Autumn holidays	Monday 11 April to Friday 22 April 2022
Winter holidays	Monday 4 July to Friday 15 July 2022
Spring holidays	Monday 26 September to Friday 7 October 2022
Summer holidays	Wednesday 21 December 2022 to Thursday 26 January 2023

 

[sam_gordon]

Here in Australia our kids’ school year looks like this:-

2022 school year
Autumn holidays	Monday 11 April to Friday 22 April 2022
Winter holidays	Monday 4 July to Friday 15 July 2022
Spring holidays	Monday 26 September to Friday 7 October 2022
Summer holidays	Wednesday 21 December 2022 to Thursday 26 January 2023

When are they IN school though? Everything BUT the holidays?

 

[mom2rtk]

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.

Yes. Our district has since my kids were little. More than 20 years. Grade school does fun type classes but high school offers actual classes that count for credit. They highly incentivize kids to go. I highly incentivized mine not to go.

 

[disneychrista]

I'd would have loved a schedule like 12/13 weeks on with 3 week breaks in-between trimesters plus the usual holiday breaks when my kids were in school. They seemed to get bored over the summer and so much is lost (forgotten) during the 10 weeks off.

 

[DisneyOma]

I don't get the "so much is lost" part either - what are they losing?

 

[disneychrista]

I don't get the "so much is lost" part either - what are they losing?

What they learned during the previous school year.

 

[barkley]

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.

it's a difficult situation at best. i used to live in the region tvguy speaks to. in the mid to late 90's when my kids were in need of full time daycare (not old enough for even half day k) i was paying just shy of $800-$900 EACH per month for them. i just looked online and the same place now charges closer to $1600 per kid. once kids became school age you might luck out and have a public that offered some early arrival/after school programs but those were still not cheap (and spots went fast). i knew people who were paying (in around 2006) $12 per hour for before/after/all day on school holidays 'drop in care' b/c that was all that was available.

my work was with social services in the same region-there was a significant percentage of our caseloads where the single biggest barrier to employment was lack of affordable childcare. there are recent estimates in that region that between 20 and 50 percent of the providers who shut down during the height of the pandemic have not reopened which drives the demand and cost up tremendously.

 

[tinkerjo]

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 can’t hit the like button hard enough!!!! We all work too hard, including the kids. I would love to see them add in some virtual classes, especially for high school. Real world experience is important too. A long winter break in the Mid-East would just mean more kids playing on video games or watching YouTube. There is nothing to do. It’s cold, snowy, and no mountains to ski on or anything

 

[Mrs.AMC]

I don't get the "so much is lost" part either - what are they losing?

You say you work in education and you can ask that?

 

[Mamabun]

Our district went to a roughly 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off schedule for most kids K-8, high schools all remained typical calendar with a 10 week break in summer. The district was pretty clear that the main reason was money, the rotating schedule could utilize school buildings more efficiently, with theoretically 33% more kids in each school (4 tracks with 25% of the kids off at any given time, buildings full constantly, but with a different mix of kids at different times). However, the district did push summer slide as a big reason it would be good for the kids. I’m not aware of any rigorous study of it. But the following observations were pulled together from some limited research and anecdotal teacher observations:
- during the summer some younger kids do regress in their school skills, numbers seem to be around 30-50% of kids exhibit this issue (yep, that means most kids don’t exhibit regression in any quantifiable way)
- the regression seems to be significant in math and reading, much less in writing, and non-existent in history, social studies, art, pe, etc,, likely because these subjects just aren’t as strictly cumulative as math and reading
- as kids age the regression becomes less noteworthy, likely because the circulums stop depending on retention over the summers as much (for example, take chemistry one year and physics the next)
- of the students who regress during summer breaks, more than half of them also regress during 3 week breaks, so with the new schedule these kids now have 4 regressions a year instead of just 1 - no good feel for which really requires more relearning, so are the 4 regressions smaller or just as bad as the summer regression
- a significant number (but certainly a minority) of families really like the new calendar and for some kids it has been an amazing benefit
- summer camps have been decimated by it, especially the speciality camps for rare sports or particular sciences or unique hobbies. The number of potential campers any one week during the summer is just too small to support these specialized camps
- the district tries to keep kids in the same family on the same schedule, and give some choice over calendar. In practice, they do not do a good job of either
- the district allows specialists to work 9-month schedules (practically they should be full time, year-round, as they always have students in session). This has been weird for most kids as they have subs for pe, art, music, a third of the time. But it’s particularly horriible for kids receiving services like speech, occupational therapy or physical therapy, as they simply don’t receive their service a third of time (to comply with disability laws, they do double-up therapies some weeks, or have subs, but neither of those approaches work nearly as well as consistent services).
- some kids who are on this calendar for 9 years and then switch to a regular school calendar for high school are having a pretty hard transition.

I was optimistic about it when the district switched (hoped it would make learning easier and give kids more frequent breaks to de-stress) but after more than 10 years of the multiple shorter breaks, I think overall it’s worse for kids and I’m not a fan. I’m sure part of my negative feeling is because of our district‘s poor implementation of many aspects of the new schedule.

 

[kyton]

When are they IN school though? Everything BUT the holidays?

@sam_gordon yep in between. Our semesters are normally 10-11 weeks in length then 2 week holidays during the year. Our summer break is the longest - when kids return late January / early February, that’s when they start their new grade. So our school year runs normally end of January to mid December each year. Then of course the kids have any public holidays that fall as well as normally one day per term that is now called an “inservice day” (in my day they were called pupil free days) which is for staff training. These inservice days can be accumulated and used in a block But this is rare.