Pollcode

My kids attend a year-round elementary school in Virginia Beach. It's still 182 days a year, just spread out better. The term "year-round" is really a misnomer. It shoudl be called "balanced schedule" b/c that's a better description. THey still have 5-6 weeks off every Summer. Throughout the school year, after every marking period, they have 2 weeks off. Our boys have been back in school since July 21. They will have their first 2 weeks off the first 2 weeks of October. Last year we used that time to go to Disney World. This year we will take a trip to the Outer Banks (weather permitting, of course). The 2 week break after that is tied together with Christmas (excuse me Winter) break, so they will have 4 weeks off in a row for Dec/January. It's the same situation for over Easter (oops, I mean Spring) break. They will have 3 weeks off.

Those 2 week breaks are called "Intersessions" and each child is invited to go back for a week of extra learning at least once during the year. Kids who are struggling a little get extra help and kids who are ahead of the game get todo enrichment.

Adults are the ones who fear year-round school. The kids adjust to it just fine. They easily swing back into learning, there is way more retention and way less review.

VB has 4 year-round elementary schools that are doing very well. The rest of the schools are traditional schedule. If you research what VB schools offer as far as education, they embody the spirit of school choice, which I am a huge advocate of. Yes there is bureacracy, which is a huge pain, but in the scheme of things, the system is pretty great. We CHOSE year-round for our boys b/c we knew it was best for them.

1) start school after Labor Day. End it before Memorial Day. Cut out all the extended breaks in between, save for Christmas-New Years. Get the Fall Semester done before Christmas.

2) That was the system we grew up with. We all did fine with math and science. My kids get integrated math now - my high school junior can barely add two 2-digit numbers in her head, and her division/multiplication skills are horrid. THANKS, integrated math!
3) A kid learns a LOT in those summer months. There's more to life than organized school, folks. Funny how our parents and grandparents got a lot more done with much less school.

My family suffered through two different school systems that went to year-round school schedules. Two different ways of implementing it AGAINST the parents wishes, and both ways saved no money (we are talking about one of the world's greatest beaurocracies: the educrats) and jerked people's lives around. What PO'd me the most was the attitude of the school systems' needs were greater than the families they should have been serving.

Having said that, I also think people who wield the idiotic BMI as anything more than a rough guideline to follow should be made to go to year-round school, after being horse-whipped of course.

Labor Day-Memorial Day would be ideal, but it's impossible to fit the required number of school days in between those two holidays anymore. What we do here in Texas is just about right: Start next week, end about a week after Memorial Day. (The smarter districts are even unbalancing the two semesters so that fall semester exams can still fall before Christmas; this is justified by the week of standardized testing [bleh] in the spring which is lost to instruction anyway.)

I'm not at all in favor of year-round school; kids (and teachers) need the break, teachers need time to work on advanced degrees, and families need time to vacation together.

(Note to site administrator: This is a great site, but please rework the code so that the comments appear oldest/newest instead of the opposite; it's annoying to have to scroll up and do the pages backwards to read the comments in order.)

I voted for mid-August.

Which is when school starts here in Alaska. And no: we don't need no stinkin' "snow days!"

Never mind that year round school is child abuse--at least if the school resembles the elementary school I attended. Isn't a child learning something important about how to live his life independently by having three months of his own time to manage as he will? Isn't that kind of independence something America leads the world in? And isn't that a lead we want to keep?

Seconding Ryan - far too much of the fall is spent re-hashing what kids lose over the extended vacation. What I think most people are missing about "year round" school is that, in most cases, the number of school DAYS stays the same, but there are week long (or longer) breaks throughout the year instead of one huge break during the summer. IMHO summer breaks are one of the reasons our students are falling behind - coupled with lowered expectations and tenure for public school teachers. Just because you remember summer vacations fondly doesn't mean that's what's best for the kids. A week or more break several times a year is more than enough time for kids to 'be kids' and laze around or play outside.

Yet another perefect opportunity to say:

Paris Hilton 2008

Drill Here. Drill Now.
She Will Supply The Condoms.

Year-old is the only responsible choice, fiscally and academically.

The idea that the kids would suffer from year-round school is silly. What would improve, in my opinion, would be the quality of teacher. Now I'm sure it would be an unintended effect, but all those low order unionists would be faced, for the first time, with having to work like real people.

But where to the lazy go after the free beer and food go away?

Look for increases in application at your local DMV office.