Does A Lengthened School Day Make A Difference? Essay

A lot of parents are shaking their heads at the consideration of a four-day school week, and a longer school day. Shorter school weeks or longer school days are reasonable solutions when there is a shortage of funding, or possible budget cuts coming to the school district. This solution has many mixed opinions from parents, teachers and school board members.

Thesis Statement: Children benefit more from a high quality full-day pre-k program because their daily attendance rate is better than average and have reduced chronic absences, their social-emotional development is better, and their achievement scores in language and math are higher than their peers who attend a half-day or no pre-k program.

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.

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

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.

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.

Imagine two parents who have a child getting ready to go to kindergarten. They are very smart and seem completely prepared for this big milestone. There is only one problem, her child’s birthday does not meet the cutoff date. Now she is faced with the decision of where to educate her child. Does she put her child back in preschool? Should she homeschool her child until the next school year? This is an obstacle faced by many parents all over the country whose children do not meet the cutoff age for enrollment. The answer to the issue is transitional kindergarten. Already implemented in California schools, it is a state-funded, two-year program that allows children to get an extra year of schooling before kindergarten if their fifth

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.

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.

Even though that schools are starting too early and students aren 't getting enough sleep. Schools should start later because teens can get more sleep and teens can get their work on time., That schools should start later so students can learn better. because Teens are falling asleep in class because they are getting to school early. and Schools are starting too early and should start later.

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.

Thomas Decker once said, “Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” School. There’s a lot of things people can say about it. Mostly they’re arguments about school such as should school have trimester or semesters? Or maybe school should be year round rather than having a summer break. However, out of all those, one in particular caught my eye. Should school start later? Now me being a student myself, this was very enticing. Being able to sleep more and have a full night's rest would be delightful. I, myself, believe that school starting later would be beneficial for school and the kids going to school. It would have its pros and cons, but it would be an overall positive impact to everyone.

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