Ah yes, the beloved winter, spring, and summer school vacations. Our children love them while oftentimes us working parents have mixed feelings about them. It’s not that we don’t want our children to get to have a vacation; it’s just that many of us don’t have the available time to take off from work and care for or be with our children. Instead, we are forced to find childcare, convince relatives to help out, or have our children become latch key kids instead of playing and hanging out with their friends like they do during recess.
With some possible changes underway, long summer vacations just might be a thing of academic school years past. As reported by The Huffington Post, due to the fact that American students “have fallen behind the world academically,” it is believed that a longer academic year will be in their best interest. By adding more days to the school calendar teachers will have the ability to invest more in their students because they will have more time to “enrich instruction.”
What is now being referred to as a pilot project will result in approximately 300 additional hours being added to the school days of thousands of children in five states including New York. Another benefit to the additional school days is the access that lower income students will have to the nutrition they receive in the form of school meals.
While the idea of a longer school year seems beneficial for various reasons there are opponents to this concept, some of them being parents. To find out why not everyone is in favor of a longer academic year as well as more on the subject visit The Huffington Post.
BMWK, what are your thoughts, should the length of the school year be longer?
Comments (6)