Thanks to climate change, we cannot assume pleasant weather in Oregon during the summer anymore. If we change the school break to be in the winter instead of the summer, then schools that can afford air conditioning will simply spend less money on heating and more on air conditioning. For schools that cannot afford air conditioning, the students will sweat and suffer in over-heated schools. From an equity point of view, if the state pays to air condition all schools, then having school during the summer would at least give children too poor to afford AC a cool place to go.
As far as having some sort of camp/work/enrichment activity available outside of the academic year, that sounds great. The question is whether the taxpayers will fund it. They should since they will save the money that they would have spent on the patchwork of camps, but voters are not always rational. -David Yokoyama-Martin
Thanks David - I appreciate your thoughtful points. I wonder if the savings from not heating our school buildings in the winter might offset the AC costs? Also was thinking that the private sector could step up on the enrichment side such as the example deLasalle showed us about having high schoolers working in the community connecting their studies to their future work world and helping teens with the relevance of school! You are spot-on about assumptions given climate change. Thank you !
Sue, your piece prompts other thoughts about connecting what we've done to cope with the pandemic to longer term changes in our education system. One thought: We should explore a combination of on-line teaching and learning concentrated in the winter months with more in-person learning and activities in the summer months.
It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to scheduling changes of this kind is managing parental work schedules. Working parents cope with summers off for their kids now -- often with inequitable and negative consequences for learning, as you point out. It's how they cope that's the problem. Would less extended time off for kids, in more frequent but shorter periods, be any harder to manage for working parents than what we do now? We know it would be better for the kids. But we haven't applied much thought to the parental side of things and to the role of employers in managing their own time off and scheduling practices.
Thanks to climate change, we cannot assume pleasant weather in Oregon during the summer anymore. If we change the school break to be in the winter instead of the summer, then schools that can afford air conditioning will simply spend less money on heating and more on air conditioning. For schools that cannot afford air conditioning, the students will sweat and suffer in over-heated schools. From an equity point of view, if the state pays to air condition all schools, then having school during the summer would at least give children too poor to afford AC a cool place to go.
As far as having some sort of camp/work/enrichment activity available outside of the academic year, that sounds great. The question is whether the taxpayers will fund it. They should since they will save the money that they would have spent on the patchwork of camps, but voters are not always rational. -David Yokoyama-Martin
Thanks David - I appreciate your thoughtful points. I wonder if the savings from not heating our school buildings in the winter might offset the AC costs? Also was thinking that the private sector could step up on the enrichment side such as the example deLasalle showed us about having high schoolers working in the community connecting their studies to their future work world and helping teens with the relevance of school! You are spot-on about assumptions given climate change. Thank you !
Sue, your piece prompts other thoughts about connecting what we've done to cope with the pandemic to longer term changes in our education system. One thought: We should explore a combination of on-line teaching and learning concentrated in the winter months with more in-person learning and activities in the summer months.
It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to scheduling changes of this kind is managing parental work schedules. Working parents cope with summers off for their kids now -- often with inequitable and negative consequences for learning, as you point out. It's how they cope that's the problem. Would less extended time off for kids, in more frequent but shorter periods, be any harder to manage for working parents than what we do now? We know it would be better for the kids. But we haven't applied much thought to the parental side of things and to the role of employers in managing their own time off and scheduling practices.
Thanks Tim - great points.