My dh and I were talking, when I was telling him about how ready the kids and I are for school to start. We think that school would be better with a shorter break!! I think that 2 months is plenty of time, and less time for them to get rusty on what the learned the previous year. About this time, they are sooooo ready to go back to school that they just pick at each other!!! School does not start until Sept 4th!.

Maybe we need to move somewhere with year round school!

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~Happiness is a large family~

Nooooo! Not more school time!

I'd only like it shorter if we got more time for winter and spring break...

Oh, heavens no! Well, esp not this particular summer. But that's because dh and I didn't really get a break. (I'm not whining here. That was our choice.)

But. . .looking at it from the "normal" teachers at my school. Many of them taught summer school the entire month of June. In July, a couple of them took classes. And the first week of August, most were back in the classrooms getting things ready, working on curriculum, etc. So even for the "normal" teachers, there wasn't 3 months of vacation.

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If you need to get in touch with me, my email is teach1107910@yahoo.com.

Officially, our school has the kids in classes 175 days a year. If there are 365 days in a year, that means the kids are OUT of school 189 days a year. Let's account for all those weekends, 52 of them, or 104 days. Then there are the holidays, let's say there are 9 of those. Plus let's give them two weeks of vacation (we already counted the weekends) so that is another 10 days off. That means we have to subtract 123 from the 189. So kids aren't in school for 66 days that they could be attending. When you think of it, summer vacation is only really 10 weeks, which doesn't leave much time off during the rest of the year.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if kids had to attend school for 200 days a year. Since they attend just 6.5 hrs a day, less recess and lunch, I think they really could use more classroom time.

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"I've been rich and I've been poor but independently wealthy is where it is at."

I am a huge advocate of year round schooling...for several reasons. One, kids spend the last several weeks of school either not listening or not doing anything important because state testing is over (at least where WE live!). Then, teachers are forced to spend the first several weeks of the next year re-teaching what the kids were supposed to have learned the year before. Add in it being SO hot in August, and if we spread the year out some, we might could avoid the kids being there at this particular time of the year! At least let's all go back to Sept through June...IMO, of course!!!

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Yes, the school year needs to be a lot longer. My dd is usually bored to tears after 6-7 weeks of summer vacation. During the last 4 weeks of summer vacation, my dd invited some friends over and they were just wandering through my house, BORED! It drove me nuts! One kid even said "Summer vacation sure does get boring towards the end."

Summer vacation is getting costly, too. Many moons ago when most moms stayed home, there was always a bunch of kids to play with. Now that so many families have to have both parents working, there's hardly any children around for the at-home kids to play with. So now everybody has to spend a fortune over summer to keep the kids entertained, either with summer daycare (for the kids of working parents) or various other activities (for the kids of at-home parents). Plus, grownups don't get 3 months of vacation, so why the heck should kids get that much time off?

The original reasons for creating summer vacation are outdated (children helping the family on the farm, schools not having air conditioning, the fear that the summer heat would spread diseases in classrooms, people not needing much education past basic reading, writing, and math), so this whole issue of summer vacation needs to be revisited. Year round schooling would be a much better option for both parents and children.

I know my food bill will sure go down when school starts. I bought 4 gallons of milk on Friday and this morning dd drank the last of it! GRRRR!

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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"

I would not mind year round school as long as they have more mini breaks! etc!! Like a week iff for spring instead of 2 days!! etc!!

But I do really like having my kids home! and being able to be lazy!! we do do the workbooks sent home by the school (we have to pay for them~ not required)
so she stays cought up!! but I love having my kids home!!

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Kelly mom to 3 great girls A Peanut, a monkey and a little burrito.

NO WAY!!!!!!

I teeter on the edge of homeschooling for the sake of more family time now. I would hate it if my boys were gone more. The school day is so long, they need a break from it all so they have a chance to be little kids sometime.

My vote would go for LESS school time - not more.