4 day school week?

[Yoder]

How can they fit all of the gender studies and women's suffrage classes in if there's only a 4 day week?

 

[MallardSX2]

What a nightmare for working parents.

 

[sodaksooner]

In SD it isn't negotiated. There is a statewide standard number of contact hours. It is up to the districts to meet the standards. If they want to go to a 4 day week they have to figure out how to make it work. It isn't through teacher union negotiations.

Sent from my moto g power 5G - 2023 using Tapatalk

What districts are doing in now? The aforementioned one from me was Hot Springs.

 

[2531usmc]

Interesting. 7 pages of comments and just about nobody expresses confidence in our public schools. Comments are coming across all of America.

100 years ago, American public schools were the best in the world and NYC public schools were the best of the best. What the hell went wrong……

 

[RyanT26]

Interesting. 7 pages of comments and just about nobody expresses confidence in our public schools. Comments are coming across all of America.

100 years ago, American public schools were the best in the world and NYC public schools were the best of the best. What the hell went wrong……

Just my opinion here, there’s been such a large and drastic change in America that we don’t even compare well to 100 years ago or even 50 or 25 years ago.
100 years ago superintendence, principles, or teachers could still discipline. Students getting paddled in the principals office was common for acting out. Getting smacked across the hand with a ruler was still commonplace for me even in the 90s, and I deserved everyone of them. Try that now.
I don’t think students overall have changed that much. Students will always push the limits on what they can get away with. In my opinion it’s 100% parents. Parents view schools as daycare‘s wether their kid is in kindergarten or senior. The vast majority of parents in today’s society will say they want their children held accountable. They want students held accountable. In my experience about 98% of them change their tune pretty quick when it’s their kid that needs to be held accountable. Teachers and administrators aren’t stupid. They can either go with whatever the community wants and keep collecting that paycheck or get ran out of town.
Facility wise: If you look at most of the public schools in my area, alot of them 50+years old. Very few school districts have newish buildings. As with anything as these buildings age, they get more expensive to maintain. Most rural communities have a shrinking population. That means the tax base gets smaller. Most communities struggle like hell getting a bond through to build a new school.
Of course, you always gonna have fudds in your community who are going to try to tell the school district. They need to go back to a pencil and paper like they used in the 70s.
And it’s scary how many of those people there are.
The current problem in Kansas at least, is that there is a teacher shortage. They are leaving the profession a hell of a lot quicker than what they’re coming in. Our base pay for a teacher starting out is 40k . Six years ago it was at around 32k. You really had to love teaching to come out of a four-year university and start out at a job at 32K.
I wouldn’t touch teaching with a 10 foot pole for what most districts are paying. And that’s coming from someone who has a job that 9/10 wouldn’t want.

Edit to add.
Funding. I can only speak to Kansas but Kansas politicians have been playing a shell game with school funding for at least the last 10 years. The Gannon lawsuit was the most recent fight. And in the last couple years, the state of Kansas has been very shady meeting their requirement for special Ed funding, so school districts are having to pick up more on that end as well.

 

[jmez]

What districts are doing in now? The aforementioned one from me was Hot Springs.

Butte County, Rapid City Area Schools , Kadoka , Phillip, Wall. I'm in Meade county.

 

[CorbLand]

Interesting. 7 pages of comments and just about nobody expresses confidence in our public schools. Comments are coming across all of America.

100 years ago, American public schools were the best in the world and NYC public schools were the best of the best. What the hell went wrong……

Its a lot of things but one thing that I think is major and it has to do with all things, not just education is that all anyone ever talks about is how bad things are and how nothing has gotten better. I am 32 and I cannot remember a time in my life where the majority of people dont talk as if the only good year was the last one, its all getting worse and everything was better 20 years ago.

Its kind of weird, you teach an entire generation that everything sucks for their entire life and then expect them to actually care about things.

 

[xsn10s]

Its a lot of things but one thing that I think is major and it has to do with all things, not just education is that all anyone ever talks about is how bad things are and how nothing has gotten better. I am 32 and I cannot remember a time in my life where the majority of people talk as if the only good year was the last one, its all getting worse and everything was better 20 years ago.

Its kind of weird, you teach an entire generation that everything sucks for their entire life and then expect them to actually care about things.

Or you look at the pattern and make notes of what hasn't been working. Then change it. America used to be one of the best nations for education. We're nowhere close now. And that's been a downward trend for quite sometime now. If you want things to get better then help to make a change. I did a few years back. I volunteered at one school and then worked in SPED. This wasn't the first time I either volunteered or worked in education. Before that I worked in a jr college.

 

[CorbLand]

Or you look at the pattern and make notes of what hasn't been working. Then change it. America used to be one of the best nations for education. We're nowhere close now. And that's been a downward trend for quite sometime now. If you want things to get better then help to make a change. I did a few years back. I volunteered at one school and then worked in SPED. This wasn't the first time I either volunteered or worked in education. Before that I worked in a jr college.

That is kind of the point of my comment. If we dont change that, nothing will ever change. What people need is some hope that tomorrow will be better than today and that today will be better than yesterday. People have to make that decision for themselves but its a lot easier to believe it when your not getting told the opposite your entire life.

Anyone that willingly works in SPED are heros in my eyes.

 

[justin davis]

Our school district went to a 4 day week. It’s awesome. I love it. I enjoy spending more time with my daughter.

 

[xsn10s]

That is kind of the point of my comment. If we dont change that, nothing will ever change. What people need is some hope that tomorrow will be better than today and that today will be better than yesterday. People have to make that decision for themselves but its a lot easier to believe it when your not getting told the opposite your entire life.

Anyone that willingly works in SPED are heros in my eyes.

I wish I could speak about my time in SPED, but by law I can't. I can say that the stuff I had to do on a weekly basis made one 17 year experienced staff member cry. And shook up a RSO that had to assist me. In my experience a 4 day school schedule is a step backwards. That's one more day to get that much more behind. That comes from someone who has trained three national champions at the college level. And had one former student run up to give me a hug after not seeing me in three years.

 

[CHSD]

Interesting. 7 pages of comments and just about nobody expresses confidence in our public schools. Comments are coming across all of America.

100 years ago, American public schools were the best in the world and NYC public schools were the best of the best. What the hell went wrong……

Would say that the public schools are solely to blame for this?

 

[CHSD]

If anyone's got any ideas on how I can get a meth head to care about their students success in academics I would love to hear them. Any ideas on how to get them to discipline their child when they are misbehaving at school. Our dang school can't seem to do anything to get this parents to care.
How about ideas how to get a young immigrant who shows up on December 1st who speaks no English how to pass state assessments in April, I am all ears!
Any ideas for the girl who is a victim of domestic violence to even give two craps about school?

15/24 students of mine do not live with their biological mom and dad. That is a much bigger issue than number of days in a school week to students success.

 

[S.Clancy]

Alot of the county schools in MT and NE WY have gone to 4 day school weeks. The only complaints I have heard has to do with sports and travel. But there have been very few complaints. My sister works for one and loves it.

 

[arrowjunkie]

Parents as a whole are, and forever will be the problem. There are great individual parents I'll make that point clear, but the overall group is ONE of the larger driving factors to changes in schools. Don't like how our current education system looks? It's probably time to look to your left and right as well as in the mirror.

Honestly, this thread is just a microcosm of the issue. "I work, what would I do for child care? A four day week would never work". You made the decision to have kids, own it. Ultimately, no one is responsible for my kids well-being except me and my wife.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

What a nightmare for working parents.

I'm just going to say it. Parents need to take responsibility for their own kids. If having them one extra day a week is going to cramp their style then they probably shouldn't have had kids.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

If anyone's got any ideas on how I can get a meth head to care about their students success in academics I would love to hear them. Any ideas on how to get them to discipline their child when they are misbehaving at school. Our dang school can't seem to do anything to get this parents to care.
How about ideas how to get a young immigrant who shows up on December 1st who speaks no English how to pass state assessments in April, I am all ears!
Any ideas for the girl who is a victim of domestic violence to even give two craps about school?

15/24 students of mine do not live with their biological mom and dad. That is a much bigger issue than number of days in a school week to students success.

In my opinion, you shouldn't care about the state assessments as its not designed to meet the specific needs of that student. I absolutely hate administering state assessments and when I sit in meetings, I smile and pretend to care but in the end the students specific needs always come before some state test that the super intendant wants so she can make herself look good to the school board.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Parents as a whole are, and forever will be the problem. There are great individual parents I'll make that point clear, but the overall group is ONE of the larger driving factors to changes in schools. Don't like how our current education system looks? It's probably time to look to your left and right as well as in the mirror.

Honestly, this thread is just a microcosm of the issue. "I work, what would I do for child care? A four day week would never work". You made the decision to have kids, own it. Ultimately, no one is responsible for my kids well-being except me and my wife.

100%

 

[thinhorn_AK]

The public school shave been abused and turned into a babysitting service for decades. The common theme of "you acually expect me to raise my own kids" is what is driving decisions in schools across the country and is also part of the reason why theres no money left to opperate schools. Its also the primary reason there is a nation wide teacher shortage.

With every bad thing that happens in schools, the common thread is bad parents. The sad thing is that bad parents don't even realize they are bad. In fact, the worst parents usually think they are doing a great job.

 

[307]

I don't think that any regulation or legislation or even an extra long Rokslide thread is going to fix education until we as a society, change our perception of school/education.

It should be that education is an opportunity to improve and build a better life.

Until you hear "I get to go to school" instead of "I have to go to school" I don't think we're going to see much improvement, regardless of teacher salaries, facilities, or daily schedules.

It's a culture thing, micro and macro.

Look at 3rd world countries where school is not available to everybody. Those folks value education at a much different level compared to the average American, who mostly take it for granted.

The economics and demographics of the nation also play a pretty important role. The Baby Boom generation is politically powerful in the number of votes and influence on policy. When their kids were in school, they voted for schools. When they aged out of having kids in schools, they voted for different priorities.

There are lots of inputs into this puzzle.