School On Saturay!!!!!!

[Rising Dead Man]

My dad just told me that Obama said he wanted to have school be on Saturday!! WTF?!?!?!?!!! You can take away the few unnecessary school vacations we have but PLEASE not Saturday! We need the rest on the weekend and some of us need to get early for church on Sunday! Saturday has got to be the worst time to have school! We already have to get up at 5 or 6 for school. WE DO NOT NEED TO LOSE MORE SLEEP ON THE WEEKEND!! IF THIS HAPPENS WE WILL HAVE MORE STRESS PUT ON US DURING THE WEEK AND BE IN EVEN WORSE SHAPE!

Sorry for all this complaining but I think this is a really terrible idea.

[OctoberChill]

Even though my school days are long gone I have to agree with you. That's no good. I haven't heard anything about this yet. I'll see if I can find some sources on it and see why he wants to do this.

Here in Dallas the head of DISD wants to extend the school year by 5 weeks for some underperforming schools.

[TK421]

In Washington, there is a discussion of reducing the school week to only 4 days. The idea is that students would have normal classes 4 days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thurday, Friday) and then they would have a free study day ( Wednesday).

The concept is to allow students more time during the week to get caught up on projects and work. Supporters think its a great way for students to reduce stress by having a study work day in the middle of the week so they may get caught up. People against the idea say it would further reduce the value of school and students would just waste the extra time out of class. They also argue that a change like this would make things more difficult on the parents who may have to alter their schedule, or pay for childcare, if their student is out of school on a weekday.

I really don't know where I stand on the issue. I worry about the state of our public schools, but I am also very happy with the advanced programs my daughters are in. I think there's good education out there if you look for it. As for my girls having a weekday off to do schoolwork, I'm fine with it. My wife and I both work from home, so there's no problem with childcare.

RANT: I just get sick of people complaining about public education, and then treating school like a glorified daycare. They think school is poor because they never take any additional time to work with their kids and teach them. When their child comes home with poor grades or disciplinary issues, they blame the school when they should be taking a look at themselves.

[Pumpkin_Man]

There has been talk of having school all year around and eliminating Summer Vacation.

Mike

[TK421]

I've heard that before, too. Having school all year, but putting in more breaks. Currently, I think the required school year is 180 days. In one proposal a few years ago, they suggested a 230 day school year with two weeks off for winter, a week for spring, two or three weeks off for summer, and then a week off in the fall. Put that together, with all the other holidays and such, and you have a "year round" school year.

The main drive behind that is/was to relieve pressure from working families for summer childcare, and to allow for more time throughout the academic year to cover material.

[DemonSlayerMau]

If I were still in highschool, I wouldn't mind having Fridays off, but needless to say they shouldn't be having school on Saturday, that much I agree with. It's bad enough having to work on the weekends, I'm really happy that my currant job gives me the weekends off. I do think the extra day off would be abused for fun. These are tough times though, and schools who may need to cut back hours somehow may have to reduce expenses. They are already reducing the amount of heat allowed at my old school. One less day means less gas being spent on the buses to pick up the kids, and if there's no one in the building, it also means less electricity being used.
Perhaps an alternative could be optional online classes. This way, kids wouldn't have to get up early, it would eliminate peer pressure, and it'll cost the school less to teach over the internet than it would in a class room. Most of my classes in college are online, so that means I could easily "go to class" at midnight if I wanted to.

[TK421]

Haunt Master, those are all points used for the 4 day school week. The utilities the school uses, the expense of bussing, as well as the hourly salaries of part-time employees such as food service and janatorial crews. All of these costs would be reduced by going to a 4 day school week. In some districts, that could actually save $1.5 million annually (these are Washington State figures.)

It's hard to say what will actually happen, or how children would react to the change. I know my kids would be just fine with a 4 day school week, and my oldest would probably use the day at home to get caught up with school work, or get a head start on larger projects.

I think the downside is for families with two working parents. Those students (too young to stay at home by themselves) would have to spend the extra day at childcare. Who knows what kind of school work they could actually get done. And for those older students who might be allowed to spend the day at home, who knows what they would actually do with their time. I have to admit, if I was a high school student and I had a free day, I'd probably spend it with friends, or watching tv, and cram an hour or two of homework in at the end of the evening.

Anyway, school on a Saturday is ridiculous! It screws up family time, extra-curricular events, team sports, etc. It's a bunch on nonsense.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I, too have put a lot of years between me and my Compusery Education days, but I must say that I do think that having school on Saturdays and eliminating Summer Vacation is pretty darn Sucky.

Once you become an adult, and you enter the work force, Summer Vacation becomes a distant memory, and Saturdays are often work days. As a pro photographer, I often even have to work on Sunday, Saturday, and in some cases holidays. I get paid pretty darn good for it, but the fact still remains, that my very last Summer Vacation was the Summer of 1978, after my Junior year in high school. After my Senior Year, I graduated, and had to get a job to pay my way through college, so I went from having to be up at 6:00 am to get to school, to having to be up at 5:00 to be at work by 6:00. I had a job back then that required me to work 6 to 2, and I had to put in half a day on Saturday. The money was okay, but the hours sucked.

Now a days, I do have retirement to look forward to in 6 years, but there's also a good chance that I may have to take a job to suppliment my pension income. And that will mean no Summer Vacation and weekend and holiday work.

But I'll tell you one thing for darn sure. My first year of retirement, I am going to take a 3 month Summer Vacation before I even bother to look for that job.

Mike

[DemonSlayerMau]

Hahaha. I can't say I blame you one bit pumpkin man!
You're a photographer? That sounds like a fun career. My cousin wants to go into photography.
I tried a photography class in highschool and unfortunately it wasn't as much fun as I had thought it was going to be. But, I do enjoy taking pictures for fun.
Got any photographs to show off?

[Pumpkin_Man]

I have tons of photos, unfortunately the file sizes are too large for this forum, and in order to post them, I have to make copies and reduce the file sizes and it can be time consuming, so I don't usualy post photos. I did post a picture of my Halloween Bonfire on the "Halloween Generak" threads. I think it scrolled off, but it might still be burried in there some where.

Mike

[iHaunt]

I didn't aware of it. I saw some kids that was going to school Monday thru Friday only. Well, I will check and see when they return back to school this autumn. I would vote NO schools on Saturdays!

[Pumpkin_Man]

Just because Obamb says something, that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen, and it doesn't meani it's true. Obama slso said that the United States is NO LONGER a Christian nation. I don't want to turn this into a discussion on Religeon and Politics, so I'll end it here, but no president has the power to arbertrairly make a law. It has to pass through both the Senate and the House of Reps before it becomes law. And then it's the individual States who are responsible for educating children at the compulsery ed level.

Mike

[Midnight Witch]

Kids will not like it! Saturday is a weekend for them. They'll just get more stress.
||NO SCHOOL ON SATURDAY||
Happy Summer

[iHaunt]

Well, should we say No Schools on Saturdays and Sundays, eh????

No freaking way for all of the kids to go school on all weekends period!

[iHaunt]

Anyway, I heard that Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stating that Barack Obama is "more likely" BUSH!