When did early-release days become normal? (county, kindergarten, public schools, economy)
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The school district in which I work used to dismiss elementary students about 2.5 hours early every Monday. The practice started in the 1970s. A few years ago the early release Mondays ended.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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In PNW, Wed early release is very common, and likely a very good thing. I cannot think of much worse things than sticking your kid to rot away and become disinterested in education by being subject to confinement in a USA public school. (many parents, kids, and teachers feel the same way )
Administrators are disillusioned, like most managers.
Taxpayers and students are robbed of precious time and money.
US Economy is crippled by inept workforce and minimal passion to learn / grow as a society.
We are getting pretty good at fighting, entitlements (selfishness), and watching the world pass us by!
Pull up a chair and enjoy early release!
Can you imagine that kids probably run home and watch more GREAT USA TV ?... cool!
The town we lived in a few years let kids out 2 hrs early on Wednesdays.
We saw a school in another state let kids out 1.5 hrs early today, also a Wednesday. The district school calendar shows it is a weekly early release.
Bet the working parents just love having to come home from work to babysit. Bet their coworkers love having to cover for the absentees even more.
That did not exist when I was growing up, nor did I even know there was such a thing until 3 or 4 yrs ago.
When did this whatever it is become established, and is it universal in US public schools?
Poor choice of words, "come home from work to babysit". If it's your own child it's not babysitting. I agree though that if you are working a full time job, that's got to be inconvenient to have to come up with alternative child care. If it's weekly and it's been going on awhile, I would guess that you just figure it out along with regular child care.
Just because you were unaware of something does not mean it wasn't happening elsewhere. We don't have it where I am, but a neighboring school district does it for their kindergarten kids and has been doing it for decades. I think the idea was to give the teachers more planning time.
In PNW, Wed early release is very common, and likely a very good thing. I cannot think of much worse things than sticking your kid to rot away and become disinterested in education by being subject to confinement in a USA public school. (many parents, kids, and teachers feel the same way )
Administrators are disillusioned, like most managers.
Taxpayers and students are robbed of precious time and money.
US Economy is crippled by inept workforce and minimal passion to learn / grow as a society.
We are getting pretty good at fighting, entitlements (selfishness), and watching the world pass us by!
Pull up a chair and enjoy early release!
Can you imagine that kids probably run home and watch more GREAT USA TV ?... cool!
Yeah, my husband and I call it Teacher Screwoff Day.
Yeah, my husband and I call it Teacher Screwoff Day.
Yeah. Right after said teachers pull the fork out of their eye because of yet another staff training on Common Core, FfT, Drug Abuse, Homelessness, Blood Borne Pathogens, Child Abuse, Gradebook Management, Proper Procedures for AM Sign In, Proper Procedures for PM Sign Out, Scheduling a Meeting With the Principal, Parent Conference Record Keeping, etc.
I graduated from high school in 1972 and we had occasional half days back then.
What has happened is that many state Departments of Education are mandating more and more in-service hours. My former system is contemplating a full two weeks of them prior to students reporting for this coming school year in addition to the normal one or two a month throughout the year.
Students assaulting teachers is not a reason for giving them routine time off from teaching. It would be a reason to give an assaulted teacher time off, of course. If an entire population of students assaulted teachers, that would call for a different remedy than only giving some time off.
I don't think the early release of classroom time is necessarily a bad thing, but I do wonder if teachers are really "collaborating" during the time designated for such purposes, or if they are just running personal errands or taking off for a three-day weekend, such as could happen with a full Friday off every other week. Yes, this routine Friday off does exist.
Teachers do face more difficulties in their jobs than they did when I was growing up. Weapon-related violence, bad parenting (e.g., kids not encouraged to finish their homework), and the ever-present intrusions and distractions from devices such as smart phones were not as common back then.
But those problems don't get fixed by simply allowing time off. So I guess my second question is, where early release is standard, is there any teacher accountability for that time? It is, after all, supposed to ultimately benefit the students' education, and taxpayers want to know if those benefits actually exist, for the students.
By law, children need to have so many hours of classroom time. Is it possible that your school district gets less time for spring, winter and summer breaks? Getting off early on Wednesdays is not common in my area, but I honestly wish it was! I also wish kids went year round like some states. For example, 3 weeks on 3 weeks off. I think by having children go to school for months and then a summer break messes them up. Not only do they need more frequent breaks to recoup, but too long of a break has them lose precious skills they learned throughout the year. It's said that after summer break children lose about 25% of what they learned the year before! Then teachers spend the first few months of school reviewing.
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