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.