Education / Teaching thread

superchuck500 said
It's interesting for sure. I was just reading about this the other day. Apparently advocates prefer the term "balanced calendar schooling" because "year round" makes it sound like they just power right through summer when the total number of days in school is the same, but the breaks are more evenly distributed.

While critics argue that it leads to student and teacher burnout, it seems that research is unclear on that - with some suggesting that it's actually better for burnout because the average break is longer than in a traditional schedule, giving teachers and students more beneficial pauses throughout the year rather than a handful of fairly shorts ones and one long one.

Another aspect is the summer trade-off between learning loss and the opportunity to things like attend summer camps, have significant travel with family or friends, and for older children, work summer jobs. These things benefit their development in ways that schools don't/can't typically provide.

This seemed like a decent summary:

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/the-pros-and-cons-of-year-round-school-calendars

In the districts I'm aware of in Mississippi that have made this move, over 95% of teachers have been in favor of the change specifically due to reducing burnout.

guidomerkinsrules said
i'm not against that in theory - i think it's best for maybe k-8th or 9th
but for (older) high school students, summer becomes a really good time for 'pre-adulting'
not sure how to compensate for that
also what are 'intersessional' days?

and i can't say i love the idea of working deep into June - coming back in the august heat is bad enough

Not sure about the pre-adulting summer, but not sure that couldn't be made up in the weeks off.

The way our district is approaching intersessions (and the way districts we've modeled after are doing it) is that on the 2-week fall break and the 2-week spring break, the first week is called "intersession." During that time, students who need additional remediation from the 9-weeks before or the additional prep leading into the next 9-weeks can get much more personal attention. Additionally, teachers or community groups who want to offer other, non-curricular opportunities (sports camps, "adulting" classes, etc) can offer those during the intersession.

Teachers are able to volunteer to work on the intersession week for additional pay based on the number of students signing up to participate during that week (but the teachers absolutely do NOT have to volunteer). The districts we've researched have said they've had to turn away volunteering teachers due to more teacher availability than students participating, so there's not pressure from the district on teachers to work away their extra week off.

We will run buses and cafeterias during the week on a limited rotation to account for the fewer students who need those facilities.

I'm a bottomless pit of information on this topic at this point, as we've been working hard on the implementation of this for basically this entire school year, so if you've got more questions, ask away.