#279: Janet Gill - NO to the balanced School Calendar

Everyone who argues that the traditional calendar is better for students academically has obviously never taught a day in their lives.  I worked for 15+ years as a teacher in the Title I schools.  Do you honestly think that sending our neediest students off for close to three months each year benefits their acheivement?  I can tell you that we typically would spend the first month or two of the school year having to reteach and make up for the regression that always occurs over the summer breaks.  Those of you that are yelling about having your 'summers back' can obviously afford the overnight camps, regular trips to the waterpark/pools/beaches, and any summer tutoring that might be available, but that's not the case for everyone.  If we had any common sense- not just in Georgia but around the country- we'd do away with the extended summer break altogether and opt for a calendar that embraces the 9 weeks on, two weeks off (or something to that effect) schedule. That's much more developmentally appropriate for children, and seeing as how the United States  no longer operates as an agragarian economy and summertime is no longer about helping out on the family farm, it's time to adapt to the times.  Here in Georgia, it's so hot in the summers we spend the majority of our time indoors anyway, so my kids might as well be in school.  I'd rather have off the entire month of October than August, when the weather is perfect and we can enjoy being outside, but that's neither here nor there.

#307: - Re: NO to the balanced School Calendar 

 Why are we so desperate to hold onto the agraraian calendar how many of us really use our children for spring planting and August harvest?  Why are the nations that are educationally ahead of us so much better?? Even our children know the answer because they study other cultures from around the world.  Really people? Take money out of it for a moment, and look, we are falling behind on the world scale.  But it takes States and counties to change this and some have, our federal gov't is useless in the eduaction forum, it is not the current President or others in the past, they cannot affect the change that we can from the bottom up.  I thought Cobb's motto was "We lead, others follow".  Where are those forward thinkers now? I don't want to be Dekalb or Fulton,  but I can feel the suction from that drain already.  Good luck selling your house now.