Next year, in the Ray County school district, students and staff will go to school for only 4 days per week. The Stet School district approved of a four-day workweek, which gives students and staff Mondays off. Fourty-five minutes will be added to each school day in order to compensate for taking Monday off. Superintendent John Wiggans states that the district will be be able to save $65,000 by giving Mondays off. It's a solution for the reduction in funding due to the tightening of the state budget. However, Wiggans also states that this change may not be permanent, and that the district will observe student performance and attendance rates in response to the four-day week.
I really like this change because I believe that 2 days off from school isn't enough for me to recuperate. Homework takes away a majority of my Sunday, which makes it feel like only a one day weekend. What do you guys think about this change to the school schedule?
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
The students in that school district are really lucky..I wish we also had 4 day weeks. However, there is a downside to this because although another free day is added for students, they may later on start to complain about how they don't have enough time to rest and do homework in three days, and they may ask for more. In the beginning, even if the students find this to be a really good solution, it might actually have the opposite effect.
Although this sounds like a neat idea, we have to remember that most people have 5-day work days when they go out into the "real world." And, if school is supposed to prepare us for the real world, like how math classes teach us problem solving, and English classes teach us analytical skills, then I don't think cutting the school week down to 4 days is that great of an idea. In addition, students will have 45 minutes less to do their homework in between school days, which will impact students who have extracurricular and after school activities, such as sports.
It sounds like a good idea to me, but I'm very interested to see if students' performance stays about the same or a little better. My automatic reaction was that their performance would be a little lower, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. It is a good way to save money too. I hope that this plan, when implemented makes the right changes for this district. I, too, would like for our school to only have a 4 day week.
I agree with Andrea that although four days of school sounds great and I know that most of us are probably envious of the Ray County school district right now, in the real world, most people go to work 5 days or even 6 days out of the week. Having a three-day weekend for the rest of our school days would be awesome, but it'll probably be harder for us to adjust to the reality of working as we get older, since this sort of benefit will most likely drive us towards laziness and procrastination. I, however, really like this idea...the San Mateo school district should put this into consideration. The 45 minute addition to the school day seems like nothing compared to the full Monday that we'll permanently have as a weekend in the future!
This sounds like a good idea to me, at least for short term. Saving money is a really good thing for schools, and they can make a lot of improvements with an extra $65,000 a year. Especially with all of the budget cuts, I think this is a great step towards recuperating and getting schools and teachers back on their feet.
Post a Comment