As both a teacher and parent, I am an opponent of year-round school without some changes to how American schools function. I have only taught three years even though I am in my late 30s, so I have experience with teaching and non-education jobs. What most people outside the education field do not realize is how intense school is for kids and teachers when it is in session. At the middle school where I work, kids sit in class from 8:00 until 3:00 with only 20 minutes for lunch, most of which is spent in line. Since we are a rural area, most also ride the bus for over an hour each way. The teachers also have a 20 minute lunch in addition to a planning period of 45 minutes which is so chock full of things that have to be done that it is never long enough. I typically do not leave school each day until 4:30 or 5:00 after arriving at 7:30. At previous jobs I had a hour lunch break and times during the day that I could spend a few minutes on a break with co-workers. School does not allow that for students or teachers. After 185 days of the frantic pace, teachers and students are worn out. I particularly remember when my son was in early elementary school, he would fall asleep on the way home towards the end of the year. While the 10 weeks my district takes off for the summer may be a bit long, I am not an advocate of getting rid of it all together unless we slow the pace of school a bit for students with longer lunch and recess to allow for important social time and for the brain to "rest". As the old saying goes, the brain can only absorb what the butt can endure. How many of you could sit for virtually 7 hours straight and absorb new information every day of the year?

The reality is that most children don't have mom waiting for them at 3pm with warm cookies and milk. Parents, particulalry middle class and working class parents, with more than one child are challenged greatly to find child care for children, whether thats a matter of price or quality.

Year round schooling reflects the reality of modern life. An extended school day would be nice too. These things need not exaggerate the problems you noted , if an effort to alleviate those problems were addressed first. I think many 3yr olds need to be in school and i think many older children sould be allowed more independence in learning.

Ideally I'd love to see a Montessori approach towards learning for young children, with traditional approaches delayed till 1st grade if not later.

Simply providing the opportunities to have extended lunch, art, organized sports and independent study could extend the school day and year without overburdening children academically or teachers.

Modern schools need to reflect the realities of modern life. Just as reformers of the past addressed the realities of those days, we need reform that is as senstive to the needs of families today.

If parents cannot deal with finding child care for their children, don't have children. Teachers are not paid to provide babysitting for your children year round. They would have to pay us so much more, and Bush's education funding is bad enough, so I don't think it's going to happen.

Summer vacations allow kids to do what they won't be able to do when they graduate: BE CHILDREN. We should be encouraging the kids to enjoy their summer breaks by riding bikes, swimming in the pool, searching for turtles and toads, and other such activities that invigorate the mind and body. Summer vacations also give teenagers and college students the opportunity to have 8-hour a day jobs that give them real world working experience. We shouldn't keep kids in school just because it's convenient for working parents.

livelaughlove:

If parents cannot deal with finding child care for their children, don't have children. Teachers are not paid to provide babysitting for your children year round. They would have to pay us so much more, and Bush's education funding is bad enough, so I don't think it's going to happen.

Oh, your a critical thinker...just don't have kids...how about this, if you can't afford day care, put your kid up for adoption...

In Africa, kids go to school for two months, then given a break of a month, a month filled with activities provide for them by the educational district. Arts, field trips and the like.

Then back to the classrooms.

Teachers, by the way, are paid a living wage, they also have helpers in the classrooms. The day for the kids has breaks built in, so they are not hurried.

American kids are spoiled, I agree with some of the "thinking" response given here. It is time that we face facts and change a school system that gives a real education to the children and awards the teachers with a living wage.

"Just don't have kids if you can't pay for child care, Tell that to the single mother who is divorced from her deadbeat husband and is working two jobs, one to feed her kids and one to pay for day care."

retiredchef... First of all, if you're going to insult my critical thinking skills, at least use the correct version of "you're." And teachers, by the way, being one of them, do not all have "helpers" in their classrooms. The class days already do not give enough time for teachers to get all the things done that we need to. They need to pay us a hell of a lot more for full time child care that extends the entire year. I didn't go into education to raise a child... I went into education to EDUCATE children.

I have taught for over twenty years and my two daughters are college graduates. While the world has vastly changed in the last hundred years, education in America has not. In order to prepare students for a new technology driven global economy, we are cramming more learning into the same amount of time while ignoring the well established cognitive stages of child development. Parents should be prepared for significant stress related illnesses starting in the early grades.

We need to radically re-think funding, the school calendar and the needs of children and parents. There is no reason why every public school cannot be used before and after school and even on the weekends for childcare. School Districts could send out bids and allow for profit daycare centers to compete for utilizing space to meet this urgent need. If schools are short on space, the government should provide funding in the form of low interest loans or grants.

Teachers need more planning time. How about a four day academic week with the fifth day reserved for extra curricular activities, projects and tutoring supervised by paid, trained teaching assistants. Teachers would have one entire day for planning, grading, meetings and in-service training. Instead of two and half or three months of a summer vacation, there might be one month.

More time in school, a longer work year for teachers and additional paid staff means a greater financial commitment to public education. Eventually America will be forced to either make this commitment or accept second tier world economic status, a far greater threat to our way of life than terrorism from religious fanatics. Our greatest military defense is not bigger bombs but a well educated population with access to learning from the cradle to the grave.

As a teacher currently enjoying his summer vacation, bravo.

The kids ought to go to summer camp or volunteer or get jobs. Do some learning in a different setting under different circumstances.

If this wasn't repeated as a toppost somewhere, it should have; I would be recommending it.

Kids only get a 20 minute break now? If my boss tried to pull that off at work we'd all tell him where to put his 20 minutes.

I'm not sure if the concept of the "Year Round" school is being represented accurately. Instructions are not given everyday of the year, but rather, maintained at 180 days with vacations interspersed throughout. Our children attend a year round school and get 3 weeks off in the fall, 3 weeks off in the winter, 2-3 weeks off in the spring, and 4-5 weeks off in the summer (with all the holidays intact). The teacher and students receive seasonal breaks and feel refreshed each time they return.

As a parent and former student, I can say that school is indeed more intense now than it was. There is so much frustration for both parents and kids. As a parent, summer vacation means scrambling around to get the kids situated and hope that you have enough money to accomplish that. As a kid, you are right 20 min for lunch, the elimination of recess and the fiscal cut slashing physical ed, Over time I'm sure that overweight kids will be the least of our problems.

This "hurry, hurry, stop" cycle is maddening.

While I am not a professional educator, as a citizen, I understand the following. 1. Traditional workdays for adults is 9-5 and most commute perhaps 30 - 60 minutes each way. The average child's workday is 9-3 with a shorter commute (many times involving walking (directed or undirected). So, every day, there at least two hours that most kids are unattended.

2. Each year, the curriculum gets more intense. The last third grade I experienced through my older granddaughter, I wondered if I would have made it to fourth grade. She was pressured and crammed. The pressure often brought a lot of tears with late night homework sessions. It occurred to me that there was no time in school for reflection, or digestion.

3. The summer comes and now "what are we going to do with the kids". Now, I'm not an ogre like the writer who was annoyed because his cul de sac was being overrun, but I do acknowledge that by the end of the summer, the kids are bored, even they realize this is impractical and start looking at the calendar for the start of school.

Why not fix the problem? Synchronize the school day with a work day, give kids a little more time to digest what they've learned. Arts could be reintroduced so that kids would be able to express themselves constructively. Public speaking even the art of public relations could be introduced. The art of budgeting and banking could begin at 1st grade.

Okay, I concede, the reason these things are not introduced? Money, or lack thereof. What we do have is creativity and the power of innovation. I feel we can do something. As of 2008 the Census counted 304,059,724 people living in the US. We only need one of those people to have one working idea at a time. and it has to be brilliant enough for the other 304,059,723 people to back it up to the point where we will pay for it. (I didn't say it was going to be easy).