The school system is scrambling to find a way to fill the required 180 days of instruction for West Virginia schools. My solution is to change the school calendar from the summer break to the winter break. Kids start school, then they are off for Labor Day. Go back to school then off for Columbus Day. The first of November brings a day off for elections (when applicable) and Veteran’s Day. Next comes a week for Thanksgiving and a month later, off for Christmas break. Then you have Martin Luther King Day.
That does not count all the snow days, so when do kids have time to learn anything? We used to get out of school the first week of June and not go back until after the Labor Day holiday, that is three full months of summer vacation. Now kids get out of school the second week of June and have to go back in the middle of August.
Let them have the same three months off, only do it in the winter not the summer. Let school start in February and run through November at Thanksgiving time. This only makes three days off in the fall. They don’t attend school part the winter anyway because of snow days, and it is a whole lot cheaper to cool the school building than to warm them. , “Maybe all that holiday money going out of the state to the beaches would stay in the state at the snow parks.”
I know there are holidays in the summer, but not as many and the risk factor for kids on school buses would lower by not traveling in the snow. I am sure higher powers than me make these decisions, but I have noticed in West Virginia and other states IT SNOWS IN THE WINTER! Kids aren’t needed to work the fields in the summer like it used to be because there aren’t many farms left. So why not change the calendar and solve the problem?
It would make sense to have continuous education for children than to have the hit and miss type that snow days bring. It is hard on the children to try and remember what they have learned when school is continuously interrupted by delayed starts and undetermined days off. Momma Said, “Here could be a solution to the problem.”