Conference moira::parenting_v3

    I heard for the first time about the non-traditional schemes from
    my cousins in Corona California. Their daughter attends an elementary
    school with the year-'round schedule. 
    Their impression of it is that it seems to tax the teachers a lot.
    As well, it is very difficult for the father (who is a railroad
    engineer) to schedule his vacation in and around when the child will
    have hers.
    "What the heck can we do in November?" he says.
    
    Monica
    

    The town of Derry, New Hampshire has been selected as the state pilot
    program for Education 2000, a program to encourage innovation and
    improvements.
    
    Prior to its selection, Derry school board members had already formed a
    consortium with other groups to research major changes in the school
    system including the calendar.  A full-year calendar is being
    researched now.
    
    The Derry News has been covering developments, although not in much
    depth.  Besides reading back issues (over the last 3 months or so), you
    can contact the Derry school board or superintendant for more
    information.
    
    It sounds like Education 2000 is being implemented in various states at
    the state level.  I don't know whom you would contact for information. 
    Does it have federal sponsorship?  
    
    I am sure that these types of proposals and existing programs are
    discussed in some detail in journals of education, available at college
    libraries.
    
    Laura

The school year here varies a lot from country to country and, in Switzerland,
from canton to canton.  In the canton of Vaud where I live, the school year
starts in mid-August and finishes in the beginning of July.  They have two weeks
in October, three weeks at Christmas, one week in February and two weeks at
Easter.  There is no school on Wednesday afternoon.

In Geneva, it is similar but with 8 weeks instead of six in the summer and the
rest of the yearly vacation reduced appropriately.  In Geneva they have no
school on Thursday but school on Saturday morning.

The International School follows more or less the Geneva vacations but with a
regular 5 day week.

I just added this up the other day.  If you through in the extra one-day
holidays and other time out, the school year in all three cases comes to
between 180 and 190 days per year.

Oh, at the Geneva and Vaud schools, they do twelve years of school.  At the
International, it is 13 (not counting kindergarten, etc. of course).

ccb

re: .1

I can imagine that year-round school causes stress in teachers.  That's one
of the reasons I defined my terms before I asked for comments.  I would not
be in favor of a year-round school schedule.

re: .2

I'm sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear in my basenote.  I live in Plano,
Texas.

Bob

    re .4
    
    Why does a year round school create more stress in teachers than for
    the rest of us who work year round??

    related to this, does anyone know the dates of the February '92 school
    vacation?
    
    My sister inlaw is trying to plan a vacation to Disneyworld during the
    vacation.   (she is in Douglas, MA)
    
    Lyn

    > Why does a year round school create more stress in teachers than for
    > the rest of us who work year round??
    
    I don't think .1 or .4 were asserting that.  I think what's meant is
    that *year round* is more stressful than *9 months*.
    
    Leslie
    

    re: .5
    
    My guess is that having groups of students at several different
    points relative to a "normal" school calendar would cause more
    stress (i.e. multiple lesson plans for each group for each day,
    etc..)   I wouldn't think that the added stress necessarily had
    to do with working year round though I would definitely find work
    less stressful if I had the summer off 8-) - at the same salary,
    of course!
    
    Carol

    re .6
    
    Lyn, Shrewsbury's is 2/17-21, FWIW.  (And Spring vaca is Friday, 4/17
    through Friday, 4/24.)
    
    Leslie

re:. Alternative schedules

Just curious as to what the motivation for the alternative schedule is.  
Lifestyle?  Educational?  Are the schools air conditioned?  I would think that 
August in Plano must be BRUTAL.

re: .6

Whenever it is, I doubt that you can put together a trip at this point.  
Airlines and accomodations for the vacation periods are booked up to a year in 
advance.  We started planning a trip in the summer of 90, and the airlines 
were already booked for the February '91 vacation (we stayed with relatives).

Clay 

    Bob, I thought you told me this morning that you ARE in favor of it -
    now you aren't???????
    
    Re .10  What is the purpose?  The theory is that the first 6 weeks
    (minimum) of each new school year is spent "refreshing" the students. 
    They forget too much during the summer vacation.  With year-round
    school (9 weeks on, 3 weeks off) there would be minimal re-teaching.
    
    Air conditioning is an issue here, but there is usually some type of
    summer school going on anyways, so I'm not sure how much added cost
    that would be.  It would impact teachers who have summer jobs to
    supplement their income.  It would impact daycare programs for
    school-aged children, and high-school students who need summer jobs to
    save money for college.  It would cost more in many ways.
    
    Considering how far (IMO) behind some other countries we are in
    education, the cost is worth it.  I like it!
    
    Kristen

    re: .11
    
    >Bob, I thought you told me this morning that you ARE in favor of it -
    >now you aren't???????
    
    Kristen,
    
    I think you may be confusing the year-round calendar (which I am
    against), with the alternative calendar (which I am for).  The benefits
    you are describing are for the alternative calendar not the year-round
    calendar.
    
    As Kristen mentioned, the schools here do have A/C.  The school
    district is researching the added utility cost for the schools.  A
    preliminary figure is ~$55,000 for the entire school district.  I've
    forgotten the population of Plano (Kristen, do you know what it is?),
    but it is over 100,000, so at the most it would cost each person an
    additional $.50/year to cover the utilities.
    
    There were some studies mentioned in the meeting that indicated that
    the alternative calendar significantly helped the 'difficult to
    educate' students.  'Difficult to educate' was defined as students who
    were physically or mentally handicaped, and those for whom English is
    not their primary language.
    
    For the 'normal' and 'advanced' students, there was either no real
    improvement, or minimal improvement in achievement.
    
    I was going to wait until later to state my opinions, but here goes.
    
    I'm in favor of the alternative calendar for at least 3 reasons:
    
    1)  As our acquired knowledge grows faster and faster, our kids need to
    know more and more just to get along in society.  If we can eliminate 3
    to 5 weeks of review at the beginning of the school year, we can teach
    our kids more in the same number of school days.  Instead of the 4 to 6
    weeks of review that Kristen mentioned, it was taking less than a week
    to get the kids back up to speed after the shortened summer break.
    
    2)  If we can help the 'difficult to educate' for $.50/taxpayer/year,
    lets do it!
    
    3)  I don't particularly like the idea of my daughter spending 3 months
    of full days at daycare in the summer.  Even with their excellent
    summer program, she tends to get bored before the end of summer.
    
    Bob
    
    

    Speaking again from a place where what Bob calls the alternative
    calendar is the norm, I'd like to relate a few experiences.
    
    For the most part it is great and some of the relearning is, as
    mentionedunnecessary.  Our school starts the year off for the secondary
    students with a week long field trip to study history, art, geology,
    etc.  This year my sons class studied prehistoric man in the hills of
    the Dolomites.  This field trip serves the dual purpose of getting the
    kids quickly to work and, since there are always a number of
    transferees in the international environment, getting everybody
    acquainted.
    
    The longer vacations during the year are usually nice off-season times
    to do something else.  October is, for example, often a lovely time to
    go in the mountains.
    
    The disadvantage is that the summer is too short that everything has to
    be crammed into it.  There are VERY limited numbers of places at the
    summer camps.  When my children were in the public schools, it was
    difficult to get airline ticke at the beginning and end of the
    vacation.  You can't just wait and go a week later because the kids
    have to be back in school.
    
    The ski week in February is a nightmare.  We plan at least a year in
    advance and the queues on the roads are incredible.
    
    Of course, much of this is particular to our situation but I can
    imagine similar problems for you on the other side of the pond.
    
    Oh, one other thing, my husband works in ISE and they love to plan
    their meetings WHENEVER (and whereever).  Trying to coordinate his
    meetings with school vacations is not easy.
    
    But, on the whole, I prefer it.  I like the regularity to a child's
    life to have the vacations more spread throughout the year.
    
    Cheryl

    There's an organization headed by Charles Ballinger called the "Center
    for Year-round Education" (or something similar) that can provide
    a lot of information about various year-round and alternative schedules
    currently operating in school districts around the country.  One
    of our magnet school planning groups wrote for information and recieved
    a stack of material which included some pro and con arguments.
    
    I'll check the address and post it.  
    
    Walter

re: .14

    For more information on Year-Round Education I suggest you write
    to:
    
    		Charles Ballinger, Executive Secretary
    		National Association for Year-Round Education
    		6401 Linda Vista Road
    		San Diego, California 92111
    

Clay

    There is also a brief, general article in a recent issue of
    Better Homes & Gardens, and if I hven't sent the magazine out
    to the recycle bin, I'll try to dig it out and post it here.
    
    My kids are not in school yet, but I am interested in school
    issues.  I see the alternative/year-round school year as just
    one more instance of how all of us have to be more flexible
    in order to be more competitive in the 1990s and beyond.  The
    thing is, if schools, teachers and families are being pushed to be more
    flexible, then business MUST follow suit.  I already get an anxiety
    attack every time I think about arranging after-school and summer-
    vacation day care for James, and he's not even in nursery school
    yet.  And I'm lucky--my manager and the nature of my job are pretty
    flexible.  What if I were in the kind of situation where you have
    to punch a time clock every day?  I'd be out of luck.
    
    I see a lot of advantages to alternative schedules/year-round school
    (among them, less time for kids to get in trouble. :-))  Before our
    community goes to such a schedule, however (and that is not likely
    to happen for at least a couple of years yet), I would hope that
    families, teachers, school administrators, and the business community
    would be in on the discussion.  

    Didn't we have this discussion before?  I distinctly remember writing
    a note that expressed my wish that school would not end earlier than
    the normal work day, and probably also expressed my wish that school
    vacations not be longer than work vacations (though I'm willing to make
    the latter longer rather than the former shorter).
    
    But then, I don't believe in public schooling, so what do you expect?
    
    		-John Bishop

I was thinking more about this.  Over here, the "alternate" calendar, as I've
said is the norm.  But this means that the entire social structure is set up
for this.  Teacher's work is considered as a year's work, not nine months.

When I did my teaching degree in the U.S., those who did not have a Master's
degree in the state of Iowa were required to return to school periodically to
get one or keep their education at least current.  Without the time in summer
to do this, it would be a terrible burden to them.  Maybe this has changed but
I'm sure there are all kinds of other social consequences to radically
changing the existing system.

Other examples: in Switzerland, it is not the norm that mothers work.  Most
creches (baby care centers, we don't usually have daycare) close for the
entire month of August when the entire family is expected to go on vacation.
Vacation in Switzerland is a minimum of four weeks, in France and Germany it
is 7 or 8 weeks per year.

A system as in Geneva where the children have school on Saturdays and not on 
Thursday is certainly not designed for working mothers :-)  France gives their
teachers a long (6 months) paid maternity leave and reduced pay for up to
three years with a guaranteed job to return to.  Rather than day care, we
have pre-school starting at 2� to 3 years and then 2 years of public
kindergarten starting at age 4.  These are much reduced hours (at most a few
mornings a week until age five when it follows more the regular program) and
exist only during the regular school year.

The point I'm trying to make which agrees with what one of the previous noters 
said is that you can't just change the school year but have to change the whole 
social and support structure.

Cheryl

    I'm sorry I don't have a lot of details on this. I don't have
    school age children yet. But the school district I live in has 
    the optional "alternative" calendar. I believe its the 9 week on 
    3 weeks off schedule. Plus any child on this schedule still gets the
    regular school holidays. The benefits far out weigh the disadvantages
    to me so I am definitely considering it for my children. 
    
    I have a cousin in St. Louis (actually St. Charles) whose children have
    gone and the only disadvantage they saw was that summer jobs were not
    really an option when they reached high school.
    
    My old school district (I'm in Michigan) is researching this schedule
    and is investigating my current school district as a success story.
    
    Other than that I don't know the details but I could get you a contact
    name.
    
    Jan 

re: .18

The problem of continuing ed for teachers was discussed.  One of the better
teaching colleges (NTSU or whatever they are called this year), is putting
together a program where the teachers can get 12 weeks of training in 7.

re: ???

Thanks for the address

Bob

I'm surprised that no one else has brought this up yet.  What about
families that have been impacted by divorce ?  Summers are often the
times when children get to be with their non-custodial parents.  My
step-children spend the summer with us, and it is a _very_ important
time for them, for my husband, and for me.  I don't know what we would
do if we lost this time.  3000 miles distance between their two homes
would make it awful expensive to fly the distance very many times a
year.

On the other hand, my step-son is bored stiff during the 6 week review 
process at the beginning of each new year.  This is especially hard on 
very bright children who perhaps don't need the review or for whom a 
week's summary would suffice.  I can remember getting pretty tired of it 
too when I was a child.  Wonder if the kids really forget as much as the
school system thinks they do ?

Leslie

    
    
    In my school, we got promoted to the next grade 1 week before school
    closed for summer vacation. We had no academics in that week. It was
    simply a time for meeting your new teachers and socialization.  Then we
    got (ugh!) "holidays homework".  All of it was basically a review of
    last year's stuff.  It was never in overwhelming amounts - maybe an
    hour  everyday.  Some kids were dilligent everyday, some kids piled up 
    everything and scrambled in the last couple of weeks !!
    
    I have very happy memories of that week before school closed.  It was a 
    lot of fun.  
     
    New kids missed out on the pre-closing socialization.  They did it
    after school opened.  The administratiive staff of the school 
    worked over summer vacation, and kept the "holiday homework tasklist"
    for each grade.  New students were expected to visit the school during
    the holidays and pick up the homework.  That way, they also got a feel
    for what was taught in the previous grade.  
    
    BTW, I went to school in India.
    
    						Pam
    

Re.: .21

The summers are also important for us since we use them to reinforce our
children's cultural and linquistic background by sending them to relatives in
the U.S. and Germany.  Without this, they would be much less fluent in their
native languages.  It was a problem when they were in the public schools and
had only six weeks vacation because we could never get flights and one
to two weeks was always eaten up by airline schedules.  Now, with 8 weeks
vacation, it is better.

Cheryl