My school has been missing alot of days lately due to the weather and flu and the topic came up of a year-round school. Most of the parents have no problem with this and why should they? Year-round school would mean that they didn't have to find activites for thier kids during the summer. BUT it also knocks out summer programs such as MSA or even the longed for family vacation. Without summer what would kids have to look forward to and when would we get a chance to just be care-free and lazy? Sure the suggested 3-day weekends would be nice but nice enough to trade for the 2-3 months of summer break? Basically they are deleting summer break and Thursdays from the calendar. If this would to go through, we would have a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday, and Sunday week. (Yes I did mean to type Saturday twice! :P ) I'm just curious if anyone feels like this is a good thing or if anyone has any ideas for good agruements if the school board really does try to do this.

It's just my opinion, but I hate the thought of year round school. Each summer I work on staff at the H. Roe Bartle Reservation, and that's over two months long. People (like me ) just kinda look foward to summer, because it's a long stretch of freedom.
Depending on the type of year round school, MSA could probably still happen. If it's the kind with 4 long breaks throughout the year, then MSA fits right in.
There are some good things about it, like having no big loss of routine over the summer, or nice long weekends (double saturdays :D) but you know they'd find a way to make up snowdays anyway...
As long as my district doesn't do it, I'm fine :)

To me it seems like year-round schooling would be a good way to make your entire childhood bleed together until it all seemed to happen at the same time. Although I guess if you grew up with that kind of school system then you would be used to it. Look at it this way, if it's implemented then it probably won't take effect until next year. By that time you'll be a senior and they'd probably have you graduate when a "normal" school (if there is such a thing) would so as not to screw up your college plans, so really wouldn't they just be putting nice breaks in your school year? Like Patrick, I'm a subscriber to the "they can do whatever as long as they aren't doing it to me" mode of thinking :P , although I'm sure you're worried about what it will do to the people in grades below you. Humans are amazing in their ability to adapt, I'd say it'll be alright.

I am not in the slightest bit worried what they will do after I leave :lol:

I am worried what they would do. My sister and I have this plan for when she starts high school in about another 4 years. By that time I should have atleast my own apartment and she would spend the summers with me.

Van Buren is a very tourist dependant town. It works well that kids go to school in the off season and then are free to work during the summer when every thing is busy. Alot of kids around here have to work to help feed thier families or to buy thier own clothes. The businesses around here depend on the summer help from the kids.

I used to go to a school where we had four-day weeks, and then a month and a half of summer break. So I got the best of both worlds. Not the longest break, but wow do I miss those three-day weekends. It was way worth it to me.

my serious issue with school and breaks is that i invariably end up forgetting half of what i "learned" before the break. so my thoughts are is it better to forget in small pieces over 3 day weekends, or to just lose all ablilty to solve quadratic equations over the summer and have to be retaught the next year? i suppose it comes down to do i want to learn a lot or get through school with the least amount of effort. i think deep down inside of people theres a little box of lazy that spoils us all. or at least "us all" in the me-and-my-local-friends sense. :blink: (i realize the face doesn't match anything i'm saying, but i like it)

I have better things to do in the summer than to go to school. With that said, I hope they institute year round schooling after next year, so my sister gets to suffer through it.


EDIT: Speaking of remembering stuff; do you remember any of that stuff from Ake's class, Patrick? While I don't remember it, I still have all the notes I took in class. It's kind of interesting and fun to look back on what we learned and all that math that blew my mind.

That would all depend on your personal strengths also. For instance, if you're really good at (and like) english and lit, but you are hate math, then you would tend to forget all the math you learned (or didn't learn :r) and be ok on the english.
For me, it's the opposite. I don't forget the math; I forget everything else :rofl:

I certainly have one huge :rolleyes: box of laziness!

It might improve the school's MAP scores though...I've already been lectured that even mine weren't up to par this year and even though I'm leaving my sister and all my cousins will still be here next year. I think this was a jab back on me asking for teachers to teach. I was editor of "The Quest" (science newsletter) for two years and that was what I was graded on instead of my physical science and biology. Half the time I wasn't even in class to here anyone talk about questions that they had. Ask me any from those classes and I probably won't be able to answer. I just think that kids should be able to get away with deals like that.

(that was all way off the subject but I need the vent :blink:)

Mike - uhh, I remember doing lots and lots of random puzzles for the whole hour, and then studying triangles of all shapes and sizes. I hardly remember any of it. :lol: This is mainly because I don't really like that kind of math, where you just memorize stuff. I liked the kind of math I had in my major more (yes, I had two math classes), because it was kind of abstract. I still have the notes that I took, although they are few.

Ashley - Hey, I want to do that. I'm always doing one thing or another outside of class, so I don't spend much time doing class work anymore, but it's all random stuff. If I had a project like that, it would be really cool.

QUOTE

even though I'm leaving my sister and all my cousins will still be here next year

Are you leaving after this year? If so, where are you going?

"The Quest" was pretty awsome and everyone read it around school. My favorite part of it was called "Off the Wall." A section of useless scientific facts. :geek:

Polarris, I didn't mean school year...I'm thinking about doing an early-out and that would have me leaving school this Christmas. I'm not sure if its worth giving up my chance as Salutatorian though.

When it comes down to it, valedictorian and salutatorian are just fun things to remember. Most colleges and especially potential employers won't care if you were 1st in the class or 10th. If you're up there, then that's good enough.
If you stay, go for valedictorian, :D but those early programs could really be good in my view. Which one(s) are you looking at? I was at one time looking at Carnegie Mellon, but decided against it.

I didn't know that there were any specific programs. I was just going to maybe go to college early or spend some time working to get a little saved up.

I'd go for valedictorian but I've given up on that. The girl that is going to get has the IQ of a stump but she cheats on alot of tests and makes perfect grades. I've tried and I still always just rank 2nd :( Oh well.