A Regular Question...

This morning, I was pouring over the local listings on Craigslist and found myself about an hour later at a lady's house the next town over.  While making our transaction, the question arose as to why I was free in the late morning on a Tuesday.  The woman guessed correctly that I'm in education, and she brought up a common question asked in the area: what do you think of year-round schedules?

First I usually explain that I grew up with year-round schooling in my elementary years, and I recall I and my family enjoying how it worked.  By staggering quarters of the student population into different three months on, one month off, the entire mass of students is never one the grounds, nor on vacation (except for 2 weeks at Christmas, and 2 weeks around Independence Day).  We liked being able to vacation at odd times, at least while my sister and I were in elementary together.

I also stipulate once kids are at the middle and high school levels, year-round schooling does not quite work.  Seasonal sports and performing arts programs would not quite work.  One cannot operate a musical ensemble when one fourth of the group is gone at all times.  The same goes for seasonal sports, perhaps even more so, particularly in limiting some students from participating at all.  So I do say, while it works well at the younger grades, the older students need the access to a full school of their peers.

Perhaps what could be done is not to stagger the schedules within a school, but to stagger all the schools.  If there are four high schools in a district, each one could take a different seasonal vacation.  This may aid in the issue this woman brought up in our conversation: juvenile misbehavior.  She had worked in law enforcement, and by far during the summers when kids are not occupied by something legitimate to do wind up becoming more bored and therefore destructive.

I would agree, and completely see that happening.  Of course idle kids are destructive.  Mine sure as heck is.  If he's cooped up for too long, the whining and experimenting with stress tests on both toys and parents increases drastically.  She said that school should just be in session for eleven months as an aside, and I don't think that's too far off from how it ought to be anyway.  I'd sure like to work more months out of the year, and perhaps having only six to eight weeks of vacation would work well for most kids, especially when we cannot leave a single one behind...