Does A Lengthened School Day Make A Difference? Essay

Heather Quick one of the authors and the principal investigator of the study said, “This study finds that transitional kindergarten does appear to provide students with an advantage in terms of their kindergarten readiness” (Tully, 2015). When they started kindergarten, children who attended transitional kindergarten were academically as much as five months ahead of their peers, who were a similar age, the report shows (Tully, 2015).

Many schools in America today are considering in having a longer schedule. However, having a longer schedule has more negatives than positives. Most parents already have a customized schedule that works with the traditional school schedule. Altering schools’ terms can affect the parents’ optimized day-by-day routines. Parents would have to make major changes to their work schedules. Vacations are shortened resulting in shorter family bonding time. High school students would have conflicts with summer jobs. They will not have to whole summer off and could only work in short breaks during the school year. In order for some schools to change their schedules, school bus transportation and other costs need to be considered. Student

Lawrence J. Schweinhart, Ph.D. ( 2014), states that results support full-day programs contribute more to children’s development than half-day programs because of the longer duration and if they are of higher quality.

Although, people may argue that with earlier start times you get out of school earlier, but evidence has shown that schools that switched to later start times have improved academically.

There has always been a controversy as to if the school day should start later on in the morning or not. The University of Minnesota study shows that schools who have already changed the beginning of the school day to later have found that only a third of students actually received eight or more hours of sleep while the students who received less than eight hours reported to have more symptoms of depression, higher counts of caffeine, and substance abuse with alcohol and drugs. In “Should the School Day Start Later?” written by Michael Gonchar, Gonchar writes that, “New evidence suggests that a later start to the school day could have all sorts of benefits…” Some of those benefits could include the decrease of tardiness, increase in attendance, test scores and everyday grades, more positive mental health, and even car crash rates. All in all the research and studies over if the school day should start later has been in discussion for years.

Repeated studies show that when the school day starts later students get more sleep and grades and test scores go up. Even having a 1 hour delay impacted students scores.

Imagine sitting at a desk all day listening to a teacher drone on and hand you a worksheet right after that. Well if your school day was 9 hours and 30 minutes instead of 8 hours, then that's what you would have to do. You would be there till 4:30 in the afternoon. Who wants to be there for that with only lunch as a break? Every class would be about 18 minutes longer. Which is why I don’t agree with schools extending the day because it can cause sleep deprivation, result in more kids getting in trouble, and more kids zoning out.

Many teenagers have been pushed to wake up early every weekday the receive. But will anyone do anything about it? Adjusting school start times could help teenagers for many reasons. Many pediatricians have been trying to change schools start times just for kids could enough sleep that the need to be healthy.

According to a report from the New York City district, a school that received funds for longer days fared better on standardized tests. This school had seven percent more students scoring at or above grade level in reading, when two other schools had increases of five and six percent. In math, three percent of students scored at or above grade level in a school with a longer day, compared with one percent for a low performing school and an average of one percent for other schools (Brett 1). This information is one example of many studies that illustrate that long school days have a great positive impact on school performance. The main school goals are improving students’ knowledge and building different skills that will help them in the future. Therefore, if longer school days support these educational goals, people should be concerned about improving schools by lengthening the day.

Schools everywhere are full of zombies in the morning. If you were to walk through a high school in the early morning, you would see teens everywhere slaving to stay awake. I find it beyond doubt almost impossible to stay awake if I wake up before 8 o’clock am. Teenagers are waking up way too early to be able to participant 100% in school. Teens need around nine hours of unbroken sleep every night, but most teens only get seven hours if they are lucky on school nights. This means that teenagers in the high school level are not getting enough sleep to be able to learn well.

The debate rages on about whether the school day should be longer or shorter, and if shortening or making the school days longer has a better effect on education. In the article “Small, rural schools going to a four-day week of classes” by Juno Kaufmann states that there are many reasons on why going to a four-day week of classes improve state testing scores and provides a better education. But in the article “Extending the school day” by Ted Franklins there are many reasons why having longer school days help education. Though you might think that having longer classes would help students, going four days a week is better since teachers are better prepared to teach student and ACT scores have gone up in schools that have four day weeks.

Have you ever hit snooze so many times you missed the buss? To prevent this from happening schools should have later starting times. Being able to start your day at a later time would be a helper to many students, although, some people may think otherwize. Having later starting times would give kids health benefits, better grades, and the opportunity to miss fewer days of school.

All these activities contribute mightily to helping children receive a truly well-rounded education. There's good evidence that the new school day improves the overall school learning climate by raising attendance and by reducing disciplinary referrals and what are blandly called "serious incidents.” Furthermore in Gladwell's research he describes how “The extra chance to make mathematics meaningful: to let his students see the clear relationship between effort and reward.”(11) which signifies that the use of data to inform their initial redesign plan for expanded time, and how to modify their approaches based on subsequent data. They work to balance and add time towards students and for teachers to work and plan together and to benefit from professional development. They combine more time for current teachers with the addition of time and services from outside individuals and community based

Most half-day kindergarten classes are about 3 hours, while full-day is considered 5-6 hours, however, kindergarten hours vary by state. In fact, according to Education Commission of the States, not every state is required to have kindergarten (Workman). To my surprise, Alaska, the state my family and I live in, does not require kindergarten, but kindergarten is offered; depending on the school, we have the option of half-day or full-day. Kindergarten is a stepping stone into the

School’s start times have been an arising issue in the United States for many years and recently began to surface. More and more individuals everyday are realizing the effects of a school’s start time on those attending the school, teaching at the school, parents of those who attend the school as well as the surrounding community. “…education seems to be the most sleep-deprived field in America” (Black, 2001). Beginning a school’s start time at 7:17 in the morning isn’t the best time to try and teach adolescents calculus or Shakespeare. “For many, the unusually early start time is nothing short of torturous. A survey of 26 Denver –area companies showed that the average adult trudges into