Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 08:41:59 -0400
From: “John R Dykers”
Subject: Year around school
Thank you for chipping in, Kathy. Seems to me the hold up is simply the enormous ripple effect of change. So many of our other ‘institutions’ revolve around educating our children.
Mia Munn, for example, mentioned all the summer camps for when the kids are out of school. This is why I like the 4 quarter system that delivers the state required days in 3 quarters, and families can choose to go all the time and finish earlier OR skip any quarter they wish for “vacation”.(my Father’s family was from New Orleans, and I never went to Mardi Gras because Florida schools where we lived were in session!) (Silly, yes, but family trips other than in Summer, may be quite meaningful)
Much of the NC Coastal vacation industry is built around “Summer Vacation”. How might it benefit from extending that to Spring and Fall?? And teachers can construct lesson plans to have sections each quarter?? Just thinking. Surely the transition will require lots of knowledgeable people thinking how to transition and it is always easier to keep our rhythms; even beneficial change is disruptive. But full time use of our massive capital investment building schools and imparting skills to teachers and staff seems to make this worth consideration.
Would teachers appreciate the enhanced status of a more obviously ‘full time’ job?? And we are looking at building a lot of new schools with new development around Pittsboro especially. There is disruption of “summer vacation” too???
John Dykers