While I disagree with this parent group’s intentions (shortening the school year), I agree 100% with putting this issue to a vote. It is blatantly obvious that Homan and the School Board are inept in solving problems and listening to parents.
“We have a right to make decisions about our kids and we want to be heard about it and we want the people we elected to listen to us.” Rhonda Lockwood is one of several Sioux Falls parents who came to the board meeting, armed with 3,000 letters from parents who want the school year to start after Labor Day, saying Sioux Falls kids get short changed out of three weeks of summer time and family time.
Paul Jennings has been following it from the start and says if school is delayed, it would throw off semester testing schedules and potentially hurt kids who are already struggling in school. “If they have to wait 2 weeks after christmas to take their tests, they surely would not be in the passing category.”
Like I said above, I don’t agree with their intentions, Paul is right, kids actually should be in school more instead of less, but I also agree parents should have the right to make that decision, I’ll give these parents credit for being directly involved with their kid’s education.
I would be more impressed with Paul if he was in front of the school board asking for tougher requirements or demanding a better education for his kids rather than more vacation time.
How the #*@! are kids getting shortchanged of three weeks of “summer time and vacation time”??? If you start later in the year, they will get out later – the net result is the same amount of “summer time and vacation time” you friggin morons.
Perhaps these parents are the ones who need to go back to school. Kids need a minimum number of days of school each year, so modifying the start date doesn’t change that. If they push the date back then the semester break will fall sometime after the holiday break, and it hardly makes sense for kids to come back after a long vacation and then cram for two weeks before taking their semester exams.
If anything, they should EXTEND the school year and allow no more than a 30 day summer break along with a 30 day winter break. This obsolete notion that kids should have their summers off just because they always have is ignorant. The entire reason the school year is designed that way is because back in the day most kids were needed on the family farm and if the decision came down to helping on the farm or getting an education… the farm always won. Add to that the fact that schools didn’t have AC and it just didn’t make sense to have school in the summer.
Why the hell we still follow this pattern when only about 3% of the kid are farmers is beyond me.
I agree Costner, I have a feeling that the parents will have no problem getting the signatures and possibly getting this on the ballot this Spring, I’m not sure though the voters will agree with them. It’s one of those 50/50 things. I think since SF has such a high dropout rate they should be going to school more.
Agree. We should educate the maggots for 210 to 220 days per year as does the rest of the civilized world. Three-to-four months off per year of k-12 school serves no useful purpose other than to fill remedial college courses.
Having several shorter breaks throughout the year makes more sense than having one big summer break where the kids can forget everything.
That’s why other countries do school all year long. We are the richest country in the world, yet our public education system sucks, we charge for public higher ed and we don’t have universal healthcare.
Fucking teabaggers.
I have been in favor of school all year round since the early sixties, but you should hear the parents yelp whenever I mention it. However, it is kind of funny it is the people more in the senior citizen category that are against it and always have been. This is my age group. It seems like the parents that are in their forties are more in favor of year round school. It’s amazing how behind the US is in some things.
I guarantee that teenage drug use and teen pregnancy would decrease if school went all year long.
Honestly, as a student here, I disagree with these people, because like you guys have been saying, the later school starts, the later we will be getting out, and there is no difference in the amount of vacation time we get.
It would be a TERRIBLE idea to have the Semester Tests right after Holiday Break, that would bring our scores down, and do we want that? No, I don’t think so, Im perfectly glad with having semester tests right before break so we can get them done, then have a nice two week vacation for the Holidays.
You know, Mr. Flyer, back in my day we’d often come back from a long Christmas break and then have finals a week later.
Yeah, it sucked.