Traditional Five Day Class Week Should be Resumed
Samantha, a freshman college student taking up Bachelor of Science in Nursing,
values her education so much. She studies hard, does her research and assignments, and goes to
class every single day. She absorbs large amounts of information at all times in order to get
herself ready in her long exams, but due to procrastination she is still left unprepared. One night,
while taking a short break, as she was browsing her facebook, she saw a post from her friends
having fun at a party. Samantha was quite disappointed knowing that her friends did not bother
to invite her anymore as they used to before when they were in high school, but she could not
blame them, because she knows at the back of her
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“With extended school days, students may miss
out on extracurricular opportunities and end up with a full day of unsupervised and unstructured
time.”(Jennifer Groepl, What Is Bad About a Four Day School Week) Lastly, students are devoid of personal time in which family events are occasionally
neglected and some other varied engagements of socialization. Cutting further into evening
family time for the sake of a full day alone-time for the students is a questionable trade-off.
Longer hours on four days create an unnecessary time crunch. Add extracurricular activities and
those days become even fuller for students and their parents. (Jennifer Groepl, What Is Bad
About a Four Day School Week) Although there is an extended weekend, students may not be
able to adapt to having less personal time available during weekdays. If students need to start
their day earlier, they still have to go bed late. If night classes extends into the early evening
hours, students may find there is a little time for anything other than eating dinner and briefly
watching television or studying before retiring at night. Students often feel paranoid for so
This schedule not only benefits children but also teachers. In the intersession teachers can decide if they want to teach (in which they would earn extra income), take a vacation to relieve stress, or use the time to develop course materials. It has been said that YRE and SES contribute to less teacher burn out and better teacher satisfaction as a result of student enthusiasm toward learning, opportunity to earn extra income, and the various different ways to take advantage of the intersessions.
Though some people say that four days in a school week will help students in certain classes especially in math, this test only worked on 4th and 5th graders. So it is illogical to think that a four day week will help other grade levels. My main concern is that most kids will not be able to focus by the end of the day because the school days will be longer,and so there would be no point in trying to teach at the end of the day. I say this because we would have to start
A four day school week means another extra day off from school! But it isn’t the fact of getting the an extra day off. A four day week week can benefit students in a variety of ways.
The overall logistics run much smoother in schools that have four day weeks compared to the five day week. “Some districts had experienced a decline in dropout rates, decreased disciplinary referrals, improved attendance, fewer class interruptions, more positive attitudes about school, and better staff development” (Yarbrough and Gilman 81). Another logistical benefit to having four day school week is that students have more time to get involved in extracurricular activities due to more availability
Some students don’t like this idea because they don’t want to change to the four day week. Because they don’t want to change the number of days or hours that we have to come to school. But that's a good thing because students have a lot of time to do stuff and school and outside of school or with sports. The best part about this is the sort week and long weekend to do whatever. Yeah! We might have to come more hours but look we got a long weekend and a pretty sort week of school.
Four Day School Act is beneficial for students attending middle school through twelfth grade along with school faculty. This program is important for students who lose focus and began being disengaged in classes towards the weekend giving them enough time to recuperate an extra day. The other option is to cut Monday as well since it is the beginning of the week where students to also be less engaged. The possible outcome effect is less absences, higher test scores, and less yelling from teachers to stay on task. While students are out on Thursday, that leaves Friday for school faculty to prepare for the following week. Teachers can accomplish various things even schedule meetings on a Monday or a Friday.
Students genuinely are more sharp and react quicker to their surroundings. As a result, teen car crash rates dramatically decrease. Psychology Today states, “... in Fayette County, Kentucky. In the 1990's, after a change in start time from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM a decrease was found in car accident rates for 16 - 18 year olds in the Fayette County school district , while rates actually increased in the rest of the state for 17 - 18 year olds.” This shows that later school increases alertness and safety. This new alertness also allows students to make less silly mistakes. Students pay more attention the the problem, and therefore aren’t tricked by wording or a slight difference between an answer choice and the correct answer. This ultimately leads to a better grades, or grades. As stated earlier, good grades go a long way, and they stay with students for their entire lives. A common belief is that if school ends later, students would sleep later, due to the the fact that school ends later. However, even with the same workload and after-school activities, I am convinced that students finish around the same time, either way. The reason? Students are more engaged in their work, are more attentive, and get the work done faster. The National Sleep Foundation, or NSF, clearly shows this in their studies, noting, “Suburban students tended to keep their regular bed times and so added about an hour of sleep per night and
One of the primary motivations for adopting the four-day week is financial savings for the school district. Anticipated savings are in transportation, food and food service workers, hourly workers and utilities. Savings on school buses and long-term building wear and tear have also been reported. After analyzing Colorado schools operating on four-day school weeks, (Dam) reports that transportation costs can be reduced by 20%. He goes on to say that in order to realize that level of savings, schools must severely limit transportation for activities or programs not conducted on regular school days. The capital, insurance, maintenance, and administrative costs remain relatively constant. Fuel, oil, salaries, and supervisory costs can be
teaching. Students might skip class and go to quiet area and go asleep. Students might also just get
Kids do not fall asleep in class as much as they did before with later start times.
While students are attending school for an eight hour day, they are bombarded with a lot of work and being taught all day. When it is time for students to come home from school, it’s
This paper includes a reference list of literature relating to the pros and cons of changing a five day school week to a four day school week. In general, the literature seems to indicate that most of the reasoning behind this change is to lower energy and fuel costs as well as cut budgets to an affordable rate. Academic progress is evaluated in some cases and discussion of what decisions have been made in the use of the fifth unscheduled day have been researched. Some suggest to use the “off” day for professional development as well as an opportunity to offer additional student extracurricular activities. The difficulty of finding childcare for the unscheduled school day seemed to be an issue that was more prevalent in suburban school districts rather than rural districts. Each individual school district had to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the shortened week and decide what worked best for their students, teachers, community.
The fifth day of the four day school week is dedicated to professional development, so although students are not attending school, the teachers are. The school districts nationwide will be required to pay teachers the same salary as before, and because teachers will be at the school during the fifth day, schools will not be saving any money on utility costs. Parents will also have a problem with four day school weeks, especially if their child is younger. The parents of the younger children would have to find someone to watch their child(ren) on the day given off. Although it may be great for the child care industry, it is inconvenient for the parents. If the child is old enough to stay home, the parents will still have to find away to make sure the child is fed, especially if the parents rely on free or discounted food from the schools, but also make sure that they are in a safe environment while at
Planning vacations with their family becomes difficult, especially if their kids attend a different school than the one at which they work. If teachers have young children who are not on the same schedule, they must find childcare during the summer which takes money out of their pockets. Not only is it inconvenient for their personal life, but year-round schooling causes complications for their work as well. Many educators count on the summer to get ready for the next school year. Because the end of one session and the beginning of the next are only one week apart at some schools, teachers are left with little preparation time (Towler). Another way teachers utilize the summer break is by attending college classes to continue their education. Many lower level teachers go on to attain a professional level degree. If these teachers are having to work through the summer, this makes it difficult to attend college
In a study by Allen and Mireable (1989), “students were on average least alert at about 10:00 AM, while 50% of the students reported being most alert after 3:00 PM. Thus, most students were in school during the period they reported being least alert and were released from school at the time they were reaching their peak alertness” (School Start Time Study, 2001). Because of the fact that this research does not apply to all students, schools should administer flexible scheduling. “A schedule is a timetable of class meetings that should help to achieve the purposes of a school” (Deighton, 1971). The purpose of school is to teach the student and have them comprehend the information being given to them. “There are two fundamental types of schedules: conventional and flexible. In practice,