Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Hours of Education

I am wondering how many hours a day your kids spend in school. We have been running a story on WHOI about a local school district that is cutting out 45 minutes of class time a day. School will start at 9:15am and end at 3:00p.m. next year. My son is still in preschool, so I am not familiar with the "normal" school hours, but I think I had to be at school by 7:45 a.m. and got out at 2:15p.m. I think 6 1/2 hours is a normal school day??

What are your thoughts about changing the school day to 5 hrs and 45 minutes? Will giving teachers more time to prepare for classes lead to better grades or will kids be spelling like this picture?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hadn't heard about the school hours changing. I live in Chilli and just probably out of the loop. Anyway, I do recall school starting early back in my day as well. Not sure how I feel about the change of hours but I know my kids are exhausted after a long day at school. Also homework every night for my son in third grade is too much! Maybe a shorter day will ease some of the stress is seems kids have today. I'm all for education but cutting recess time and the competitive spirit of parents I think can be very overwhelming for the children.

Jennifer said...

My kids' grade school runs from 8:05-3:05. And it seems to work out well. Educationally it seems fine and, for parents, it's convenient.
I think if the school really needed to change the schedule they should have sent home surveys to the parents to see what would work out best. The late start of 9:15 seems especially inconvenient. How many parents will be able to get their kids to school (or on to the bus) and still make it to work in time?
Many parents may have to arrange beforecare, which I think is much more difficult to obtain than aftercare. There are just aren't many beforecare programs. Plus, sending a little kid to beforecare, then school, then aftercare seems like a bit much.
Jennifer
I

Jen Christensen said...

Yah, I didn't think about the kids being exhausted. That would be nice if the change in the school day ends up being a benefit to them. The change in hours is happening in District 150.

I can't imagine that most people don't have to be at work until 9:30am. It seems like that will cause problems for parents.

Anonymous said...

Most schools in District 150 do not even get enough PE to meet the state requirement. From my understanding, the state minimum requirement of classroom instruction is 5.5 hours. There is no primary school in the district that will meet the PE requirement under the new 5 hour and 45 minute school day. I would like to know if the district's new plan will meet 1) PE requirement and 2) meet the states minimum education requirement.

Jen Christensen said...

Melinda, You are correct. HOI found at least 6 schools in the district are not meeting state requirements for P.E. We did several stories on that this week. There could be more schools that are not meeting requirements. All we could confirm was six. It seems there was some confusion over whether recess counts as P.E. It doesn't. So, there will be a lot of re-organizing now that the district realizes this. When I get to work today, I will post the "response" we got from District 150.

 
Template by lollybloggerdesigns. Design by Taylor Johnston.