Extended School Hours
 

We've talked about year round schooling, school systems having 4 day school weeks and now we have school systems with longer days, primarily for elementary and middle school students.

U.S. schools weigh extending their hours
BOSTON - School principal Robin Harris used to see the clock on her office wall as the enemy, its steady ticking a reminder that time was not on her side.

But these days Harris smiles when the clock hits 1:55 p.m. There are still two more hours in the school day — two more hours to teach math and reading, art and drama.

Harris runs Fletcher-Maynard Academy, a combined public elementary and middle school in Cambridge, Mass., that is experimenting with an extended, eight-hour school day.

"It has sort of loosened up the pace," Harris said. "It's not as rushed and frenzied."

The school, which serves mostly poor, minority students, is one of 10 in the state experimenting with a longer day as part of a $6.5 million program.

While Massachusetts is leading in putting in place the longer-day model, lawmakers in Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Washington, D.C., also have debated whether to lengthen the school day or year.

In addition, individual districts such as Miami-Dade in Florida are experimenting with added hours in some schools.

On average, U.S. students go to school 6.5 hours a day, 180 days a year, fewer than in many other industrialized countries, according to a report by the Education Sector, a Washington-based think tank.

One model that traditional public schools are looking to is the Knowledge is Power Program, which oversees public charter schools nationwide.

Those schools typically serve low-income middle-school students, and their test scores show success. Students generally go from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and for a few hours every other Saturday. They also go to school for several weeks in the summer.



Read the rest here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070225/...er_school_days

Knowledge is Power Program: http://www.kipp.org/

Teachers, parents, what say you?

^^^^ Good stuff! But I wonder how the teachers feel?

I teach, though not at that level.

I think that it sounds promising, particularly if it means that students are more successful--and I am not just talking about test scores.

But I also wonder about the teachers. Are they happy with the extended class time? Do they receive additional compensation?

You know, I had this way too long response written and I just erased it, lol. Here is the bottom line:

1) As an educator who is experienced with after school literacy programs, I do agree with extended day school.

2) Many teachers here are against it because they are used to short days and summers off and have not been educated thoroughly about how extended day programs usually work.

3) Extended day school would be better than after school programs because they would be run by TEACHERS. Although I like the mentoring aspect of many programs that link college students and americorps members with kids, it's just plain better to have real teachers operate these programs.

4) In my school system, I think the afternoon program should have a mandatory academic component for students who are basic and below basic. Extracurriculars are great for systems with resources, but we have got to provide kids with what they REALLY need academically.

Basically, 20 years ago when I was in elementary school, somehow we got it all in six hours. Now, not so much. I don't know why.

I know why
 

Cause when I was in elementary school, like 30 years ago, there was more discipline and structure cause teachers could beat your ass, so we "got it" in those 6 or so hours.

Now today, you can't even yell at somebody's child without some parents (and even some educators) raising their eyebrows. I started teaching around 10 years ago and I know that with each year the school calendar year has gotten longer and longer. If it gets any longer I will quit. :(

i could see an extended school day also helping families save on child care expenses.

From the 2nd half of the article, it does mention additional compensation as well as parents' reactions to the extended day.

I agree with what you posted. We got it in within 20 hours because we had discipline from parents and from teachers.

Definitely!

I agree!

If done correctly, this could be a win/win for students, parents and administration.

That ^^^ is a no brainer. Districts would HAVE to pay more. AFT and NEA would be on that like 'white on rice.' I don't see why a longer day is needed. Maybe, more districts would want to implement block scheduling, where students are in a class for at least 90 minutes.

Extending the day, IMO is NOT going to erase the problems districts (schools) are facing. It just means educators have to deal with the problems for additional minutes per day.

[QUOTE=BlueReign;1403235]Cause when I was in elementary school, like 30 years ago, there was more discipline and structure cause teachers could beat your ass, so we "got it" in those 6 or so hours.

That's the truth! Although we can still paddle students here, if the parents don't enforce the rules at home, we're just wasting our time.

PADDLE? Say what? It's legal?

:eek: :eek:

In addition to that, teachers had more freedom...to teach. Thanks to the judiciary system and NCLB, teachers are more pressed to teach the test and help kids make the score.

As a teacher, anything that can help the kids succeed and is proven to work in a general sense, I am all for it. However, if I am on the job time, I want to be compensated for my services.

I know some places, it still is. The parents have to sign a written consent form, and two or more individuals have to be present when the paddling take places.

Quite frankly, if the parents aren't doing it at home first, then a stranger doing it won't help the matter. It's sending the wrong message to the child.

Yep. I don't paddle the students, the principal does. Yes, they have to have a witness, and I do agree that if we do it at school, it doesn't work if the parents don't care.

That's how it was done when I was in elem. school. A witness? Everyone must be related in your district. :D :o

Although some points from the article are theoretically sound, an extended day wouldn't be needed if other problems were fixed like class sizes, resources, inefficient planning periods and consistency of discipline.

When I first started teaching, 7th grade had 3 clusters that consisted of 1 science, 1 history, 1 math and 2 English/Reading teachers. My biggest class was 25 and my smallest was 12. The class of 25 was the GT class and the class of 12 were the lowest in terms of intellect. My smallest class never reached the level that the others did but they showed the most growth because it was easy to control them and I was able to work with them more.

Now, we only have 2 clusters and every class has more than 30; some have 35. It's crazy and some days I wonder if they've learned anything at all. I get so worn out dealing with 100 kids a day that by the time school lets out at 3:15, I feel like I've run a marathon. With that said, there would be no way I could stay until 5:00 teaching because, as one of my students says, the light would go out in my brain.

As for resources, I don't know about other schools and other districts but my students don't even have books assigned to them. We keep a class set and only parents can check out a set of books. I can't assign any work because not every student has the books so I have to spend the 90 minute period doing things that could be done for homework if students had books. It would free up so much time and I could feel as if I accomplished so much more if I could assign a story or a book assignment like we did when I was in school. And of my workbooks that I have, the students can only write in 1 because I have class sets of the others.

I just feel like I have to do so much as it is--meetings on top of meetings, data analysis, reports and other bullisht that having to stay until 5:00 would mean having to find another career.

^^Exactly, and one of my friends who is an elementary school teacher routinely stays at work until 6:00 to grade, prep, etc, though her day ends at 2. An extended day would push her schedule back until 8:00, only to be up a 5 the next morning.

It is no small thing to add two additional hours with 25+ students onto a teacher's already marathon like schedule.

I wonder whether there is potential for other trained and certified teachers to step in?

My school schedule from kindergarten until 8th grade lasted until 4:30pm. We were in classes a long time, but we didn't know any different because the vast majority of us had never gone to another school. Parents were always able to pick us up because they were usually off of work between 4pm and 5pm. Looking back, I think it was fantastic. We spent more time learning and when we got out of class, we were sent directly to our parents, instead of to video games and unsupervised activity for several hours until the parents got home. I'm pretty sure the teachers at my school were paid comparable wages to others in the district.

What time did school begin? I'm sure it was still the 7.5- 8 hours. Pay is generally uniform across the board in the same district.

Still, if a FAMILY does not VALUE education or deem it as important, teaching kids 12 hours a day means NOTHING. It will only cause (more) teacher frustration and low teacher efficacy, IMO.

Agreed.

Not only were teachers allowed to discipline the students, the parents actually teamed up with the teachers. Some 25 + years ago when I was in elementary and middle school, if one of my teachers called my house, my mother did not hesitate to deal with me. Nowadays, you have parents who want to fight the teachers and administrators. WTH?????

My mom taught 30+ years in the Cincy Public schools. Teachers passed notes through the teachers' mail system. On the RARE, RARE occasion I got into trouble :D my goose was cooked before I could hit the door, good.

P.S. don't bring back the memories of when teachers could discipline you. My mom had a paddle that had holes in it -- to cut down on wind resistance!! You did not play in my mama's class.

I had a parent try to clown me for writing up her daughter who skipped my class. The mother had the audicity to defend the students actions and say I didn't know what I was doing.:mad: I stepped in to the hall with her and asked her where she worked so I could tel her is she was doing her job 'right'.....yet, she is unemployed and defends her daughter who fights at least once a week.

Sadly, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

A friend of mine who is a teacher JUST told me about how he went through this exact same scenario last week. He wrote the kid up because he was disturbing the class and his mom came up to the school yelling and clowning at him - instead of asking her son why was he acting up in the class. Priorities :rolleyes:

Honestly, I would support an extended school day IF it meant bringing back recess (with a morning and afternoon break), smaller classes (so the teacher could teach in a more intimate learning environment), and effective discipline methods were re-introduced into the school system.

Areas of Concern:
Smaller classes: NCLB and acquiring 'highly qualified' personnel. Prior to this legislation, there was a teacher shortage. Plus, NCLB allows for most students, even those with the most severe disabilities to become part of the general population, thus increasing the PTR.

Effective Discipline Re-introduced: Again, NCLB, IDEIA, and other legal guidelines have administrators and teachers' hands tied. "Effective discipline" as we knew it, won't be re-introduced. Unless, districts require their school-based personnel to keep record, track (documentation) of student's behaviors, districts will be at a disadvantage and what we once knew stays out the window.

Extended Day !
 

** A toast to YOU for the TRUTH!! **

You're right, it was about an 8.5 hour day. So, it wasn't much longer than normal. We did have before school and after school activities occassionally, but so does every other school.

What made our school work probably was the strong family commitment. I don't know how parents today can stand to spend so little time getting involved with the education of their children. It's really discouraging about the state of this young generation if they don't value education and aren't encouraged to from their parents.

God Bless our Teachers! No not everyone who is a teacher should be teaching but good lord, glad most of 'em give a damn.

I teach an after-school kids Dance Academy(FREE) and wow all I can say is I'm only with them a couple of times a week!!! Out of 30 kids, 2 parents have even came to see their kids progress! They won't just come pick their kids up an hour later to ensure they attend every session, won't send the given proper attire regularly, I mean good gawd!

I went to school and majored in the HPER Dept, left with a double degree in both B.S. Recreation and B.S.E. Physical Education. I keep teeter tottering on whether or not to go into the classroom FT as a Physical Educator.

In the Academy, I try to relate dance as much as possible to their core subject areas, and yes most of the kids really would benefit from extended day.

What don't they need more of though?? Folks phasing out PE, Basing EVERYTHING on these freakin tests, whew!!!! Educators deserve all kinds of incentives these days imho.

You know what I don't understand though? In my local district, they (the school resource officer bka the school police officer) carry tasers and USE them on students - but yet, discipline methods that we grew up with (ie paddling, making a student stand up in class or in the hallway for being a disruption, in school suspension) are considered "embarrasement" or ineffective. :confused:

Apparently giving students mini-electrocutions are a good alternative here. :(