Should the School Year Be Longer?

Weird !!!!

The school year should extend longer and have more breaks thoughout. The same amount of school days, just over a longer period of time. In Germany, we had a month off for summer, a week off for fall, two weeks for christmas, a week for winter, two weeks for easter, and a week for spring.

They increased the amount of credits required to graduate if it werent for that i would've graduated a year and a half earlier. More math, science, and history which leaves me no time to go looking for a job which is needed in every young adults lives. We need more time in the introduction into the work force and less time learning unnecessary information on the chemical structure of hyrdochloric acid and y=mx+b

It's already a pain in the neck. If it gets any longer then students will be EXTREMELY stressed out, and their grades will drop.

And I say the same thing people bring up longer school days, getting rid of weekends, etc. Kids need time to be kids. EVERYONE needs relaxation and unwinding time. There are alternatives to giving children access to healthy food (honestly, are most schools' foods that healthy? mine sure weren't) and providing free childcare.

Not necessarily longer, but rather configured differently, as in year-round. What I've seen that works well is 3 month on 1 month off. This still results in plenty of vacation/rest time, but with less loss of momentum in the educational process.

But if it is, then I want to be paid more. I am not going to make more bricks without straw!

Longer will mean more field trips and movies to watch for the kids. For the teachers, less time at the beach.

Summer isn't all about relaxation and rest for teachers-- they still work through many school vacations.

I agree, some do, but most don't.

I'm not talking about having a second job, I'm talking about how even when kids are out of school, teachers have conferences, meeting, and lots of concluding work (at the end of the school year/beginning of the summer) and preparation work (at the beginning of the school year/end of the summer) to do. It's not all fun and games.

Schools that I know rarely offer field trips, and very occasionally watch movies.

So, what do they do to fill in the time?

Work. Too much work.

Hang in there. It will get a lot tougher when you start working full time. You're going to have to work and please your boss at the same time. And most bosses are A-Holes.

Is being a pastor even a full time job?

elementary school shouldn't have summer vacations and for middle schools they should only have summer two months long. In high school when people start working should get the summer off.

Most kids need there sleep and most of us have lots of chores and only get to have a week of vacation then we have even more chores after vacation. So no more school then what we already do.

Screw you guys who say yes. It's already long enough and unreasonably run.

yes, Yes, YES!!!

We need more baby sitting. Make it all year, 365, seven days a week, and 18 hours a day, too, so we never have to see or deal with the little brats. Heaven knows we don't want them learning anything from us as parents. And we don't need them in the summer any more to help us raise crops like they did when the school system first started.

Send them off to the PROs, the NEA education gurus, who can teach them that communal living is much better than family connections. We don't need any more of this independent thinking that we untrained parents might give them. Look what a mess mother nature and the US Constitution has made of our daily lives so far by letting untrained parents teach their kids.

Besides, all this personal responsibility stuff and the idea that I might know as much to teach my kids as the next guy is driving me crazy. And this random parenting has caused all this upsetting diversity in our country.

You should think the same way I do, the same way my teacher does. I mean, think about it, do we really need fifty brands of Yogurt? You should just use the same brand I do, the one my teacher said I should use. And you should vote the same as me, too, the way my teacher votes. it would save a lot of hassle every other November, and make the world a much better much calmer place to live.

(For all you other people who voted 'Yes" this is called 'sarcasm'. Look it up!)

DDD

Life gets difficult & stressing kids should joy summertime all other holidays much as can.

HEEELLL NOOOOOO

Longer years, more stress on the students on the edge, moretime to pick off other students.

It is one of these questions where there are good answers on both sides! I favor school from the day after Labor Day until the end of June. 9 months is not enough!

I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I do believe Summer break is far too long. I HATED school, but that's because I disliked the majority of my peers. I don't like being dragged down with other people when I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

I personally feel that there should be only four major breaks, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. They could essentially do away with certain vacation days all together and simply only allow vacation during those four major breaks about as long as Winter Break.

Two weeks is certainly a good enough time to rest and wind down, and possibly even three weeks. I also believe that we need better teachers. I have honestly met three teachers during high school who were only teaching to have something while they were going to school for another career. I had even heard a great many teachers use this phrase, "I don't like this job; I'm doing it for now until I finish school to start the career I want." Take note that they didn't ever say it that nicely or professionally.

We should only have dedicated and effective teachers, and they need to be paid a lot more. I'm sorry, but us teenagers are demons; I have to hand it to some teachers.

The length of the school year is not a problem; it is the ability to make school student-friendly, have the money available to hire the best and brightest teachers administrators, pay enough for college students to be motivated to teach, and have full support from families. People who enjoy the idea of the nanny state would love having less time to be responsible for their children. They are fed free breakfast, free lunch, homework help lines, after school care, school health policies, free tutoring, free Kindles and other electronics, computers, etc. etc. We might as well feed the kids supper, do their homework with them, and keep them overnight until the weekend. Both teachers and students need breaks, especially the summer break, to regroup and rev up to enter the next grade with an excited positive attitude. I doubt that scores and learning would improve if the kids went to school 365 days a year.

I agree if kids and adults don't get their rest and sleep and get better education, we might as well let the reaper have his own theater with everyone on it. Kids on street trying to do the best they can to survive and adults working double time. Ya not what we need.

just leave it as it is. because that was the case, then there will be more stress and dropouts.

hell no. i enjoy my summer, winter, and spring vacations....

this country needs to not only catch up in education. .but we need to purge the teachers who are spewing their liberal communist agenda on our kids. I wouldn't object to a longer school year...simply to better educate our kids.

It's not about the length of the year. It's the quality of the teaching. The systems need to get off their lazy bums and teach better. Length has nothing to do with it.

Good point, but the liberal focus with government approval, especially at the college level, makes it hard to accomplish that purge. Who would investigate some of the things now being taught in American classrooms and presented in biased textbooks at the el/hi level in order to start turning this approach around? Some of the new social studies books that districts are presenting to their students are scary in the way they randomly rewrite history according to their personal slant or delete/change facts of history that they don't particularly agree with. I know several high school social studies teachers who are proud to be Socialists and regularly spout their personal feelings during their daily lessons.

you're right...who would investigate? But if we don't get things right, we are doomed, if not already....for me...i'm going home soon...but i pity my grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren...

No question.

Why we need a full three months of "summer vacation" is beyond me.

Why we'd need to be at school almost all the time is beyond me. And children get to be with their family more during the summer.

I'm torn, actually. The kids and teachers need some time off. (Summers are the only vacation days for teachers. They get personal and sickness days, but that's hardly a vacation.) So in that regard, I say keep summer.

On the other hand, kids lose a LOT of their learning over summer vacation. A lot of school is spent winding down and picking up, making the last month or so and the first month or so of school kinda pointless.

Maybe if they expand the Christmas holiday break by a week or so, decrease the summer to about as long as the winter break and make Spring break longer, they could give kids and teachers times off here and there and keep the kids' brains from rotting over an extended break.