School Schedules

Are any of you other parents, in Utah or elsewhere, annoyed by the multitude of addendums to your childrens' school schedules? I know I am.

Whether your kids go to private school or public school, standard seasonal schedule or year-round, there's always a basic schedule you get at the start of the school year. Let's say the basic schedule is 8am-3pm, Monday through Friday. In addition to weekends, in the U.S. you'll have the standard holidays like Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July, etc., that your kids won't have school. It's after that where I start to get a little....annoyed...at the additional days off from school. For example, you'll see things on the school calendar like, Teacher Compensation Day, Teacher Work Day, Spring Break, and in Utah you'll have UEA. There will also be a number of days off for substantially less traditionally important holidays, which, incidentally, seem to multiply like rabbits from year to year (ie-all the holidays, holiweeks, and holimonths, that have various colored ribbons attached to them). And one that's new to me this year, is early out days for Parent Teacher Conferences. We had Parent Teacher Conferences when I was in school, but nobody got the day off or got out early for them. The conferences started about 20-30 minutes after school let out; at normal time.

Now, some of you may balk at my listing of Spring Break as an irritating and unnecessary 2 week break from school. Before anybody gets all worked up, I'm only against it for K-12 schools; college students deserve Spring Break. For parents of kids in elementary/primary school, this two week break makes it harder to get your usual errands done, and if you're a single parent, or both parents work, then you most likely have to find and pay for a sitter or day care of some sort. Elementary/Primary School, Junior High/Middle School, and High School, kids haven't earned a 2 week break in the middle of the school year anyway. Sorry youngsters, but it's true. I didn't deserve it when I was in school either. Besides, at least college students are old enough to actually do something other than sleep in and go to the mall on Spring Break.

Call me old fashioned, crazy, or any other inoffensive name, but I thought the whole point of going to school was for kids to learn. If kids aren't in school, how in Hades are they supposed to learn??? I know that kids in some other countries spend a lot more time in school, and guess what!!! They learn more and get a better education than most American students. They test better and do better in college too. Hmmm, could all these extra days off be part of the reason that kids in this country aren't nearly as knowledgable or well educated as their counterparts in other parts of the world? I'm gonna have to say yes.