Posts by jadetinker85

Nicholas Davis4 said:Personally, I’m really craving a single-shift schedule.
We actually preferred having two shifts because it meant we could sleep in once every couple of weeks.
Back at my local elementary school, there was a whole debate over moving to a single shift, mostly so kids could catch up on rest every other week.
But that plan fell through.
Yeah, insteadlocallyall the schools are now strictly morning sessions...🤦
And it leaves those poor kids stuck home alone in the morning...🤦 (It’s as if they assume kids can't manage themselves, which is unfortunately how they're treated.)
Anyway, just a random thought that crossed my mind.

But people work shifts too. There’s an entire spectrum of jobs—retail, hospitality, healthcare, tourism—where people are working afternoons or late nights.
Not to mention music schools where livelihoods are being threatened, or local sports clubs that don't have the facilities to accommodate anyone interested after 5 PM. 🤷

Robert Wilson said:Thanks! Point taken, I misspoke there. But I’m still standing by everything else I said!

So, who’s actually stepping up? Keep in mind that things like homeroom duties, parent-teacher conferences, and extra sessions have all been absorbed into other roles. On top of that, they bumped up the hourly rate for direct student contact, which is going to create massive budget surpluses in almost every subject area. Maybe some tiny school with three students would apply, or perhaps people who can't do basic math—like those folks at Misducate who think they're getting a tiny raise when they aren't.😁

Robert Wilson said:Schools are all buzzing about those $300 million in subsidies, and suddenly everyone is scrambling to make sure their district gets a piece of the pie. But I have to ask: why on earth are they cutting back on computer science—the very thing we need to actually function in the future—while doubling down on these soft, propaganda-heavy humanities courses? If we’re supposedly heading into a tech-driven future, what kind of future are we actually building here?

I find it hard to believe nobody noticed this, and we aren't talking about millions here. 😁 We're looking at maybe $300,000. That might cover building a small gym, patching up a roof, or swapping out some old windows.

Bryan Wells11 said:I'm telling you, they just aren't there.

In my opinion, this looks more like a group tasked with drafting new curricula rather than the actual brain trust behind the entire experiment.

True. Drafting a syllabus for a new subject is one thing; engineering an entirely new set of responsibilities is something else altogether.

Susan James said:The reason I say it won't be a natural death is because this whole project was originally designed to roll out to just 50 experimental schools over the next four years before hitting the rest. It’ll slowly phase out in those pilot schools, and then basically face an abrupt end everywhere else in America if this experiment actually goes through.

But of course, the pundits will claim that full-day schooling works perfectly in other Western nations, the European Union, or Canada... and that we should all be striving for that. 🙄
Forget the arts; we just need to push STEM. 🧐
If there isn't enough room in the budget for specialized art teachers, they can always afford to hire more Social Studies and History instructors, theologians for religious studies, or maybe a few extra computer science teachers.

We shouldn't forget that this full-day school initiative is really just the brainchild of the former Secretary of Education (the current one is just using it for campaign purposes)... and from the very first announcement, staff at arts academies have been terrified about their future. They're worried about how they'll work and what their lives will look like—if they're working until 7 or 8 PM while their own kids are sitting in school in the morning, when will they actually see them?
I have a colleague whose entire family has worked in music education for generations, and they are struggling immensely. A huge number of kids burned out during the pandemic (partly due to the stress of learning in outdated buildings), and this change will only exacerbate that burnout... or rather, people will just stop enrolling altogether.

Back in 2020, when they started reopening schools for the younger grades, people were flooding the Secretary's Facebook page with comments about music schools (where lessons are one-on-one, meaning social distancing is easy and classes could have easily continued). Not only did she ignore those messages, but she actually deleted them—in a way where she hides the comment so others don't see it, even though you might not realize it's gone because it still appears on your screen. Simply put, she doesn't care; she just looks at her screen and moves on.

👎 👎 Look, if you’ve already climbed all the way up to a Cabinet position, you might as well face the criticism head-on and actually fix the problem. You can't just sweep this under the rug.

Sarah Hall53 said:Yeah, it’s basically a tiny little rural schoolhouse—just one single grade level with no other classes running alongside it—and then there's our regional hub, which is just a combined department setup. Every year, we all end up placing bets on whether this will finally be the year they decide to pull the plug and shut us down for good.

Man.

Sarah Hall53 said:Maybe she’s in the exact same boat I am—right now, I’m juggling 20 hours of pure teaching time, spread across five different classes and eight different curricula. Throw in an hour of remedial sessions and an hour of enrichment, plus my elective subject which usually adds another 10 to 15 hours to my plate... honestly, the only thing actually increasing for me is my duty roster.
Then there’s this one colleague who’s sitting at 17 hours, plus her homeroom duties and electives; she’ll basically keep doing what she’s always done, except now she won't even hit her full workload—she'll be three hours short of a full schedule.
And look at our math teacher—she’s at 16 instruction hours, four math classes, plus homeroom, remedial, enrichment, and her extra work with ExxonMobil. If she were working under the Democratic Party, those four classes would already count for 20 hours—and then she'd still have to pile on the homeroom, the extra sessions, and the ExxonMobil stuff on top of that.
As for the computer science teacher... her hours are getting cut by half, and since her scheduling duties are rolled into everything else—and let me tell you, trying to coordinate a schedule in a school where almost every single teacher works at multiple campuses is a total nightmare—well, you can imagine how stressed she is.

I'm guessing your school doesn't run on a single shift? At my school, nobody breaks a sweat; everyone thinks what you're describing is just impossible.😁

Sarah Hall53 said:It’s just more direct contact hours—more and more. They’re bumping everyone’s quota up to 20 or 22 hours now, which is wild. And all those tasks that were already massive time sinks—stuff like being a homeroom teacher, managing schedules, handling shift rotations, or dealing with all that endless paperwork—they used to count toward your required teaching hours. It was a fair trade. But now? Now they’ve just lumped everything into "other duties." So, some poor soul is still expected to grind through it all, but instead of it counting toward the requirement, it’s all shoved into extra work *after* you've already finished a full 20-hour load plus another 6 or 8 hours of supplemental stuff. It's exhausting.
They're basically asking us to pull more weight for the exact same paycheck. It's just plain old exploitation.

Right. And then you see some news outlet claim that "not much is changing." How is that "not much"?

Bryan Wells11 said:Some bureaucrat has apparently decided to sneak a dangerous precedent into the official documentation by converting teaching hours into these so-called "solar hours." Once again, it’s glaringly obvious we are dealing with people who have zero practical experience in a classroom. It’s a sneaky way to force a mandatory 20+ hour instructional norm on everyone, which is physically impossible to execute without massive technological surpluses—and that isn't even just an issue for computer science teachers. Everything else people used to do within their full load—supplementary work, extra duties, hourly instructors, department heads, administrators—is all being pushed into those afternoon hours, outside the official norm.

I don't know; day by day, I find myself more discouraged and bewildered by the cowardice being shoved down our throats and why we even allow it.
About ten years ago, I actually loved coming into school. I found joy in the work, laughed and cried with my students, and stayed involved in everything. But then you sink into this filthy system like it's quicksand, and it breaks your heart to see what they are doing to people. When the skilled and motivated professionals finally leave, they will be replaced by the incompetent and the poorly trained, people who will lower the standards and turn children into mindless drones.

Here is the crowd deciding our educational fate: a bunch of partisan hacks, all of them deeply entrenched in corruption.
https://www.politico.com/news/how-they-stole-millions-of-dollars/

Because there are people who have decided, for reasons known only to them, that this "minor adjustment" benefits both them and the students.

northerntiger9 said:Until they address the issue of incompetent staff—which has been systematically ruining entire generations for years—all-day schooling is just going to cause more harm than good. Kids will just endure whatever they have to at school, then head off to some more motivated, sensible environment if they actually have the drive. Same goes for the lack of a plan to handle disruptive students; until the classroom isn't poisoned by an atmosphere that’s unmotivating and unproductive for the kids who actually want to learn, all-day schooling won't achieve anything—if anything, it'll be worse.

On another note... one thing doesn't make sense to me. Why is everyone complaining about computer science being cut? Right now, it’s only required for 5th and 6th graders for two hours a week—under the new plan, it would be required for all eight grades for one hour a week. That’s double the time. I’m not even counting electives; anyone who wants deeper knowledge can just sign up for extracurriculars, which could focus on things like robotics, programming, or digital tools for photo/video editing. For the basics that every kid needs to grasp, one hour a week across all grades sounds perfectly reasonable. The real bottleneck remains the quality of the faculty.

In second grade, it's an elective, and enrollment is sitting at 70%.

The whole all-day school model is designed so teachers finish their morning classes, wait out lunch and recess, and then run makeup sessions, extra help, and Coca-Cola clubs during the afternoon shift. You end up with the exact same number of teaching hours, just layered with extra duty.

Sarah Hall53 said:Honestly, if I had my way, I’d pass a law requiring every single politician—and yeah, even their immediate and extended families—to get their healthcare and schooling through our public institutions here in the States. ☕ Maybe then they'd actually give a damn about making sure our public services actually work for everyone else.

Instead of just turning everything into private clubs and luxury wellness retreats.

Susan James said:So, I was watching this vet on TV, and they were saying that parents who are pushing back just don't seem to get the whole idea behind a full-time program.
The speaker explained it quite nicely: kids would basically be at school until about 2:00 PM, maybe 2:30 PM at the latest, and anything after that is totally optional.
Plus, once they wrap up their school day, there’s no more work to worry about—no more homework or studying at the kitchen table late at night.
They’ll get everything done while they're actually at school.

It feels like we might be overcomplicating this debate when the solution seems so straightforward.
On top of that, since students won't have access to AI to cheat or copy answers, they'll have to rely on what they actually know, which is why having them do all their assignments during school hours is such a great move.

I'm just trying to crunch the numbers here... if an average 6th grader currently has about 5 hours of classes a day—meaning they're finished by noon and then grab lunch—they could spend that window from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM finishing everything up. They can review what they didn't catch, finish their homework, and then be completely free after 2:30 PM with zero responsibilities at home.🙏
(Of course, math changes slightly because of the four extra elective hours per week plus two more for math and history, but those are just small details. Since they'll have a bit more time during that afternoon block, they can easily knock out the homework for five or six different subjects in an hour or ninety minutes.)

Honestly, though, I wouldn't want to be in a teacher's shoes. Imagine having angry parents showing up at 3:00 PM, giving you a hard time just because you worked those extra two hours—especially when their kid is actually crushing their exams! But hey, I suppose if the pay increases accordingly $833, it might make dealing with that stress a little easier.

The pay increase will be about $135, according to a Department official speaking on a local radio program.

Michelle Nelson4 said:So, that’s essentially how you can push them toward supplemental tutoring. As for competition prep? Honestly, looking at how some of these local organizations handle things, it’s almost laughable. 😂

I really appreciate your assessment of my knowledge! I suppose all those other countries with much longer school weeks than our standard 24 hours per week are just completely clueless, right? They'll probably just look to our system as a blueprint for how to achieve "world-class" results where students finish eight years of schooling with nothing more than a surface-level understanding of the material. 😉

It's a Fact-checker thing: 25 hours of direct instruction clearly rubs a lot of people the wrong way. They don't care if that's standard practice in the world's top educational systems. Apparently, teachers should just pull 40-hour weeks and stay glued to their desks if we want everyone to be happy.

nimblelynx7 said:We’re on the right track to taking this over.

Seriously, how is it even possible that Scandinavians have the best school systems out there, yet once they grow up, they just want to end it all?

I suspect it’s a climate thing for them. No matter how much effort they put into making their countries livable, the weather there is still pretty brutal. You can't really use the weather as an excuse for what we deal with here.

Susan James said:Forget this whole Finland obsession. We need to stop looking at Scandinavia as some blueprint and trying to force their model onto our way of life.
They have incredibly high rates of suicide and depression.
Are we planning on importing those statistics too?

You're looking at outdated stats.

https://www.nytimes.com/news/help-resources...

https://www.cnn.com/news/health/elderly-care-trends...

Paul Davis2 said:Exactly. Culturally speaking, Estonia shares much more in common with Finland than it does with us. We can try to emulate anyone we want, but school doesn't exist in a vacuum—it's a reflection of society. Whether teachers here in America have it the worst, whether they're overworked, whether the Department of Education ignores them, or if parents are just being irrational while everything is permitted... honestly, I haven't the slightest clue.

Everyone keeps bringing up cultural differences between Finland, now Estonia—which also lived under communism—and us.
What kind of massive cultural gap would actually make implementing a system like Finland's impossible?
Are first graders in Finland fundamentally different from ours in terms of competence or maturity?
At the end of the day, the goal should be healthy, happy kids and equally healthy, happy teachers—not just in America, but in any functional country.
Presumably, it matters that the people working with students are satisfied and motivated?

Paul Davis2 said:Look, in an open dialogue, you can bring up any country you want. I mentioned the US as a response to The Hague. You can't just jump from one thing to another and then try to lecture students on what they are or aren't allowed to mention, right?

It seems like whenever a country supports your point of view, mentioning the USA or the United Kingdom is fine (not sure why those two specifically), but if it doesn't fit your narrative, suddenly the argument is that we aren't Finland. Neither the USA nor the United Kingdom look like models we should be following—especially not the USA.
No, I encourage constructive debate, provided it stays within the bounds of decent communication. If it doesn't, then yes, you have to step in and set boundaries.

Paul Davis2 said:We aren't Finland; they have much stricter entry requirements for teacher training programs. Plus, I think they factor in instructional hours (though I should double-check the primary sources since I'm not at my computer right now).

Salaries here need to go up.

It varies by person, but the folks in Stemovac certainly don't work the least—in fact, they carry full workloads. Others work significantly less. There isn't much room to increase the hourly rate for Stemovac teachers, even though that’s what the Department of Education wants.
On top of that, changing the work dynamics and conditions would lead to better schools. I honestly don't know if Finnish teachers even handle their own administration. Who does it for them? Who handles the assessment, the thinking, the descriptions, and the data entry for individual student progress in Finland?
This study isn't ancient (it's from 2020), and the data table is solid and concise.
https://www.scielo.br/j/cp/a/rVwRHXM...at=pdf&lang=en

What does it matter that we aren't Finland? Weren't you using the USA and the United Kingdom as benchmarks? We aren't either of those, either.
In Finland, given how much they invest in education, there's no question that both the curriculum and the teaching methods are tailored to age-appropriate developmental competencies. We could look to Estonia as an example; despite being a smaller post-communist nation, they successfully implemented the Finnish model.
But we aren't Estonia. 🙄

hiddendriver34 said:I’m really enjoying this thread. There are so many thoughtful and sensible points being made here. 👍

Looking at everything everyone has shared, I’d love to pitch an alternative to the Department of Education. Instead of just pushing for "all-day school," why not launch a comprehensive initiative called something like "21st century teaching"? Here is what I think that project should actually look like:

- Full-day programs in all elementary schools for grades K through 4.
- Modernizing and upgrading our schools so they actually match the era we live in.
- Adding proper kitchens, dining areas, and cozy lounge spaces in every building.
- Hiring more support staff—like janitors and cooks—and making sure they get a decent living wage.
- Giving teachers a much-needed raise.
- Increasing the number of specialists and counselors on campus.
- Beefing up tutoring and extracurriculars, while letting older students (if they're into it!) have the option to knock out their homework during school hours.

Did I miss anything?

That’s how you actually improve the school environment without turning these buildings into glorified prisons.

That said, I'd still implement a rule where kids clean up after themselves, similar to how they do in Japan.

Paul Davis2 said:In the USA, it’s all in the laws—and since every state does its own thing, it varies wildly; some have a floor of 14, while others go as low as 9.
Over in the United Kingdom, the legal age is 12.
Just a quick rundown—I didn't dig through the other places just this second.
As for our own traditions, we know how it works—nobody's going to come knocking on your door to check up on you unless something actually catches fire.

What does this have to do with us? We had a relative visit from the United States once, and the guy was terrified to even walk down the street. Constantly looking over his shoulder, asking if everything was safe. We finished up at a restaurant, and he just stood there waiting for everyone else to exit first, watching to see if anyone would get hurt stepping outside.🤷
The less of that American mindset we bring into our shops, the better. We don't need it. 🧐

Owen said:Check out this post
Just pull the plug and get the money back, similar to how other USA funding works. Honestly, the best move is just to keep saying "no."

Why? It’s not like that capital couldn't be put to much better use—stuff like upgrading school equipment, bumping up teacher salaries so we actually have enough chemists, physicists, and math experts, or making sure extracurricular sports are free for every kid in the country.
Instead, we're forced to expand school footprints by eating up playground space and pushing more sedentary activities?