Well you would know that better than I wouldn't you, Gary?

Yes I read the entire post and am well aware of anonymous' position.

I guess teachers of other subjects needn't be bothered with such nonsense, but do you suppose behavioral and emotional students require English classes?

Or are they simply taught to behave and emote?

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I sincerely hope you are not an English teacher.

If you had read the comment and then had the ability to comprehend what was written, you would know what "anonymous" teaches.

I teach behavioral and emotional students

It just proves that being a smart a** isn't the same thing as being smart.

I am a teacher

I sincerely hope you are not an English teacher.

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The more we educate our kids, the more they get stressed out and you see much more behavior problems from those who can't keep up. More children are being medicated and growing a dislike for school. Students needs time off, yes it might cause financial distress for some families. however, thats what having children do to us. I am a teacher and half my summers are spent in school/classes in order to keep my state mandated certification. If I had to teach throughout the summer, I would quit teaching. Teaching is a very stressful job (I teach behavioral and emotional students) and I look forward to being off. Also throughout the school year teachers pull late hours when they go home, most time close to midnight. Summer is a time to visit family, and to reconnect with my kids. By the way I still have to pay for daycare, or withdraw them and find a new daycare when school restarts.

But more to the topic at hand, we are now to succumb to the school calendar preferences of a known minority of two-parent, single-income families AND an unknown volume of single parents living on the public dole?

I think we basically agree that something needs to be done, we just disagree on the tools we use to get there.

I'm just a little hesitant to start changing the schedule around if it doesn't have any affect on academics. Schools have to do enough junk these days that don't have anything to do with academics.

Now with the change coming up in how hard our state tests are, the effect that year round scheduling could have on academics might be substantial. I don't think we know.

The other problem I have with year round scheduling is that there are some unintended consequences dependent on how it's implemented.

I agree that having affordable child care available is a necessity, and I'm not necessarily against using school buildings and whatever else can be used from the school system that can help with some form of child care.

I'm just not sold on adapting the school system's calendar year to meet these needs, if the change doesn't have some positive and substantial effect on academics.

In which case only stay-at-home Moms and their kids have more time together, while Dad's off at work?

Or, this being the 21st century, stay at home with dad while Mom's off at work.

I don't think the number of parents who stay at home is that small a minority. In my experience as a teacher in Title I schools, I was always surprised by the number of parents, and single parents who, for whatever reason, stayed at home. I came to the opinion that for some, schools are an inexpensive "mothers day out" program.

Now, before everyone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying that those people were the majority, or that there is not a need for people with child care issues.

I'm just saying that I don't think it's a good idea to force kids who are able to benefit from a longer summer into a program that doesn't provide any benefits for them. That doesn't mean I wouldn't support a program that does provide a benefit for kids whose parents are not able to attend to them.

It's like programs that give out toys to kids who otherwise wouldn't get much, or anything, for Christmas. I've been involved in a number of them. But that doesn't mean that I want to see schools take toys from parents who can afford them, and be in charge of distributing all the toys to all children.

Give help, in some form, where it's needed. But don't dress it up as another "educational necessity" that really doesn't provide any educational benefits.

Like Pre-K. Although the research is far from conclusive that could guide us in any direction, I'm sure Pre-K is helpful for some kids. So, let's use it to help those kids, but let's not make it mandatory. That's all I'm saying.

Gary: "I also think that for the families who are able to use an extended summer to strengthen the family, that opportunity should not be taken away."

I truly don't mean to badger, but who is this? I'm just not understanding the circumstances of who these families are that could somehow strengthen their ties over a longer summer break.

Whether they are one- or two-parent families (or among two-parent families, single- or double-wage earners), doesn't SOMEONE have to work until 5:00 daily, Monday through Friday? How is this extra time to strengthen their ties to be found in a longer summer break, unless NO ONE in the family observes any schedule of obligations over the break?

Or are we still speaking of that minority of children growing up in two-parent families who may also stay home with Mom all day? In which case only stay-at-home Moms and their kids have more time together, while Dad's off at work?

I'll listen, now...

At the risk of sounding like a liberal, I think this is one area where the government should accommodate children who can't be attended to at home over the summer with some sort of government program, but not necessarily adapting the school year and school system to address this issue.

While an extended school year would help parents who need help attending to their kids, I also think that for the families who are able to use an extended summer to strengthen the family, that opportunity should not be taken away.

The commercial is largely correct that having dinners together as a family, no matter the make up, does indeed cut the risks of kids having trouble down the road. But, we have to be practical too and realize that the economic demographics have changed over the last few decades, and that change has created issues that need to be addressed.

I feel that whenever the education system is used as a means to other ends besides educating students, it further weakens the primary goal of public education.

What to do? Whatever is done, I just wish that public education would not be viewed as a multi-purpose tool that can fix anything that's broken. It can't.

"So they developed a calendar with a block of time to close schools during the best time of year to take a trip to the beach..."

Over the last five or so years, I have made two trips to south Florida in July. I told my husband if he expects me to do it again, he'll need to strap me to the top of the car.

The locals flee, for gosh sakes!

On the Schoolmatters site as well as personal emails with one of the Save the Summers moms, we came to the conclusion that this is all about personal choice and perference. There is little concrete evidence to say one is better than the other academically, more effective or even more economical.

The difference between people seems to be somewhat high school vs. elementary as Tamara pointed out. The high income vs. low income and parent at home vs. non -- seem to be secondary.

I am with Cathy, I really don't care about the calendar and wish there was this much energy and passion about what is taught, how it was taught and where it is taught.

We probably need more than 180 teaching days or longer days to accomplish what we need to prepare children for post secondary education -- be that college, techinical or other training program.

Pamela Treacy

You women are nuts. Give the whole country a national paid summer vacation. Give me a break!

This is one reason why I support the Post Labor Day start date and a very long summer break:

We also realize that our kids are very close to that point in their lives that they can kiss goodbye this notion of twelve weeks to do nothing each and every year. They're headed to work!

We have but a short time in our lives to just be kids, but a very long time in which to worry about the 8 to 5 life. When I look back on my childhood, all my best memories occurred in the summer. I spent the rest of the year hoping I'd wake up with the mumps or something so I didn't have to go to school.

Our family did our best bonding in the summer. It was heaven on earth not to have to worry about getting on that bus at 6:20 a.m. and being in bed at sunset.

Also, going back to school in early or mid-August puts small children on hot school buses, on hot, treeless playgrounds without sunblock, and our school system in the position of paying for maximum airconditioning. I do not have empirical data to support this, but it would seem to be a great contribution to energy conservation to delay the start until after Labor Day.

I don't really give a you-know-what WHEN the school year starts and ends. I care what they do when school is in session and what opportunities exist when the school is closed. This entire argument is a distraction from things that matter. I especially dislike the idea of someone in Nashville telling every school district in TN when they should start and stop.

All I know is when the US dominated the world economy and led the world in education kids began the school year after Labor Day and ended the first week of June. Back then we also taught reading writing arithmetic and science and not a bunch of feel good crap.

We parents prefer the traditional school calendar

I can easily see an argument for year-round school, but it wasn't one of the options on the poll. My feeling is that going to school in August in the south is just nuts. Not to mention expensive for the school systems which have to pay for the air-conditioning.

And if students need time off every eight weeks or so to crash, maybe the schools need to rethink their assignment density and class schedules. Exhausting students for four years of high school in the name of "college prep" is not particularly conducive to actual learning. (I was an honors student back in the day, but chose to take no AP tests, and just skipped a year of calculus, a year of French, and took honors level courses in my other freshman classes. It cost no money up front, and I was able to fill in the extra hours needed for graduation with interesting electives.)

Do the people answering this poll actually have school aged children?

Doug McCaughan
(link...)

I was surprised to see that a majority of respondents in this poll favored the "agrarian" calendar. An earlier poll at the News-Sentinel's School Matters site (sample size around 200) indicated majority support for the existing calendar with a mid-August start date and a fall break.

Personally, I fall in with that School Matters majority, as it seems most parents to high school students do. We're looking at concerns like these:
1) Those of us with kids on the rigorous Honors/AP curriculum track feel our kids NEED these frequent breaks through the school year, including the fall break and the periodic three-day weekends resulting from school in-service days. Our kids are routinely up past midnight, churning out hours of homework, and they "crash and burn" about every eight weeks!
2) We don't want our kids sitting for the College Board's AP exams in early May (exam dates set at national level) if they haven't yet completed a full semester of high school coursework in that subject area--especially since we've paid around $250-300 per AP course for primary/supplementary texts and the exam fee ($84).
3) We do want a schedule that meshes well with Dual Enrollment course schedules offered by community colleges over the summer, most of which start summer courses very close to June 1.
4) We also realize that our kids are very close to that point in their lives that they can kiss goodbye this notion of twelve weeks to do nothing each and every year. They're headed to work!

This concern others mention of younger kids' difficulty retaining what they've learned over a long summer impacts on my opinion, too. Teachers lose a lot of time on review at the beginning of the school year, even on the existing calendar with the mid-August start date.

Losing calendar days to review is an especially compelling concern, given that the US already schedules fewer days in the school year than nearly any Western nation! Our 180 days compares poorly to Japan's 210 days, for instance, and Japan also squeezes more hours into each day. China also has a considerable "edge" in this regard, as do a dozen European nations.

Neither do most middle-income and poorer families welcome long summers, which translate into long periods of astronomical day care costs for their younger children. They (and I, when I worked full-time and had two children in daycare) would much rather break up these out-of-school costs over shorter and more numerous breaks.

Locally, the push for the post-Labor Day calendar arose among parents of young children attending Sequoyah Elementary, and they just aren't representative of all Knox County's families.

(On a less academic note, we prefer vacationing in the fall, too. Cheaper rates and more comfortable temperatures.)

I like to vote in polls. I have no children, therefore possibly no real say in this discussion. My 2 cents. As a child/teenager, I loved summertime and the time off from school. Thinking back, it appeared there was plenty to do during the summer months, e.g. swimming, bike riding, wandering, visiting neighbors, reading, working in the yard, etc. As I recall, we started school the week after Labor Day and it ended the first week of June. It doesn't seem like I forgot much of anything I learned from the previous year due to too much time off. Young minds are quite amazing. When challenged and encouraged, their ability to learn and retain is astounding.

The Knox County Schools' survey is available online.

The outdated system of school breaks needs to adjust to today's reality.
No longer are kids needed on the farm in the summer.
They need educated, year 'round.
And more importantly, teachers need paid like the professionals they are.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

The parents of children in the Knox County Public School System brought this issue to Donna Wright for her assistance in setting a start time more condusive to families and children having a longer summer break togather.

In my opinion, Donna Wright didn't think this was such a big issue and the involved parents didn't think she needed to be the Super and deposited several hundred letters outlining those concerns with their school board members.

Hopefully, the new guy will realize the school system belongs to the families that send their kids there.