The Education Wonks
This means the time will have to made up by getting out later in the summer, right? What if students' families choose to leave school early then to go on vacation?
Hi,
I have been teaching at a Charter School for the last three years and we have had a 3-week vacation each year. The last week is staff development, our test scores are fine.
Ooooh. Let's be careful out there folks. Do we really want to give credence to the idea that three weeks away from school is somehow harmful to the kids when two weeks would not be? If three weeks are bad, what does summer vacation cause? Brain damage? Let's not be too quick to support the year-round-school tin hat wearers.
Coming from the midwest, I was used to the 1 1/2 to 2 weeks of Christmas vacation (er...I mean Winter Break!). Moving to the southwest, I have worked in two different school districts that give 3 full weeks for break for the same reason as the CA school in the article. I have to say, as a teacher, it is a great break. For students, I don't think anymore is lost by adding another week. I think it gives both teachers and students just enough time to relax, reflect, and begin fresh.
Another point. If the majority of kids aren't coming to school anyway . . . then the school isn't getting ADA for them and is still paying for overhead, etc. If they make the time up at other times in the year, great.
I work in Northern California. I only had one student extend her vacation by a week but it's a small school.
I, too, covered this issue, and the comments are fairly "lively". One commenter said that if the school were a business, and 92% of its customers wanted something, it would be a no-brainer.
But I'm not of the philosophy that students are our customers.
A more apt comparison, perhaps, is a company at which I once worked. We had a large percentage of our work force who was Asian, and we learned that it was easier to make Chinese New Year a day off than to open with what amounted to a skeleton crew. (No, firing people who didn't show up wasn't a good option).
We adapted, one day off didn't kill the business, and our employees appreciated the accomodation. Sounds like a win-win to me.
And it didn't take a union to negotiate that day off, either.
The question not being addressed, of course, is the percentage of those going to points south of the border who will be making illegal crossings to return...
We live in a small farming town, and have a 3-week break for the same reasons as mentioned here. We begin the last week in August and end the second week in June, so it doesn't really affect us that much (but we also only have a handful of one-day holidays during the rest of the year.)
I LOVE the 3-week break--gives me a lot of time to get things prepared for what really is the most work-intensive part of my year--the time between Christmas and testing. I only wish TPTB would adjust our calendar so that we could finish our semester before Christmas, rather than coming back from 3 weeks off and having 3 weeks left in the semester. *That* is really annoying.
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