School board just voted in favor of 4 day school week for next year

@martin777 This is all by Republican design - to absolutely GUT public education so people just say “fuck it” and either pay for private school if they can afford it, homeschool if possible, or just keep sending them to a place that the government has completely abandoned because for some reason it’s wrong to “pay” for the education of our nation’s children?
 
@martin777 I think a 4 day week is awesome in theory (combined with full year school). But omg, so unfeasible in current society. It would be amazing if my work work was also 4 days to facilitate it. I’m really sorry that you’re in this position. It enrages me that they say parents shouldn’t rely on school as daycare. Excuse me? Are we just supposed to have backup childcare available at all times? Argh.
 
@katrina2017 I also wonder… what if your kids go M T W Th for their four-day week, but your schedule is T W Th F? Or for non-office jobs (like cashier, stock, delivery) you work Th F S Su? Ughhhh
 
@valerie60 To be fair, if your job wasn't M-F, then you'd already have issues with a regular school schedule anyway.

But I think a cool system would be for 4-day weeks to be normal across the board (for jobs, school, everything), but yknow maybe instead of everyone all having the same 4 days, instead there would be more sort of "shifts". Like right now we have people that work weekends and nights, but that's maybe considered not the "normal" work week. So with 4-day weeks maybe we could have a more even split where M-Th is considered just as "normal" as Sat-Tu or whatever.

And schools could similarly be split into maybe 2 different "shifts," which could help provide more flexibility to parents and create smaller class sizes.

Just an idea that popped into my head. Obviously that's not actually happening and probably never will lol
 
@martin777 My kids have half-day Fridays every single week and I always wonder how anyone is supposed to manage that if they don’t have a parent at home. Luckily, my husband works from home so it’s covered. But for anyone who has 2 parents working outside the home or a single parent home, you’re still needing childcare. It’s such poor planning and really put all caregivers in a weird spot because you do actually depend on school to be a form of childcare, and there’s nothing wrong with that!

What was the school board’s response to how parents are supposed to manage the Friday care? Just a big middle finger to working parents? Not really the way to build support and mutual care and trust.
 
@martin777 We've had 4 day weeks for six(?) Or so years now. Here they have Mondays off, typically, and the days are a bit longer. In some aspects it's okay. I wfh and my kids are older, also it's nice sometimes to have that day to make appointments. But overall I fucking hate it. Now they get all pissy if they have to go on a Monday.
 
@noiramrnslmc I'll caveat that I'm in NYC and have a 4 year old. For younger kids, like 5th grade and younger, there are fee-based after school programs. Some pick your kid up at the school. The one that my kid is enrolled in, is on school grounds.
Quality varies. Usually these programs run some kind of "school holiday" camp throughout the year and a summer camp.

It's absolutely childcare driven. Also, expensive and some run until 4, with a late extension to 5-6pm for parents to pick up. All of it costs extra.

When I was a kid, my parents worked different shifts so that someone could pick us up at the bus stop.
 
@noiramrnslmc I can't speak to current systems (my kids aren't in school yet), but when I was growing up, I would go to a private daycare chain after school. They'd send busses to pick up the daycare kids from school (also dropped us off in the morning), and then I'd be at daycare until my mom picked me up in the evening. I did that until I turned 13 and aged out (she was a single parent and didn't want me going home by myself).

I believe our school district did offer some sort of school-run after-school programs, but I think they either ended too early and/or did not provide bus transportation to take kids home. So we never utilized those programs because they didn't work for us.

Eta: this was in a liberal east coast state in the 2000s.
 
@martin777 School shouldn't be relied on as daycare. Women should just stay home all day without working to deal with things like this. One more thing to put on a woman's plate to get her to stop working.
 
@martin777 And this is on top of covid learning loss. Poor kids. Poor teachers, future year teachers, lecturers etc. Imagine trying to fit all they need to catch-up and all the new things they have to learn within a shorter period of time.
 
@martin777 I'm in Canada and my province has stupid half day kindergarten with alternative fridays off. The stupid shit I've even heard of. I cannot believe that it's still half day like it was over 30 years ago when I was in kindergarten.

It's almost always punitive to women in hetero relationships. We are fortunate to have gotten our eldest son into the before and after school care that takes place at his school; it covers the time the school is open but without kindergarten class. But it is still infuriating.

We go from full-time daycare costing us an arm and a leg to a dumbass cobbled kindergarten system that makes life more complicated.

Im sorry OP, that's really frustrating
 
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