3 Schools To Experiment With Longer Day

So kids will no longer have the joys of childhood to look back upon; only the torture they had to endure in a brick and mortar building for almost 12 hours a day. Ever hear of the rule of diminishing returns?? Check it out folks. The best part is the AmeriCorps component. People who have no teaching expertise will be in charge? I love the comment by Harp that this will be better for the parent schedules. We no longer think of what is REALLY best for our children; it is what fits best for the parents. Maybe if parents thought of their children first this ridiculous, no, that is too kind, this STUPID idea would not be on the table.

It's too darn long. You can't have these kids doing low grade clerical work for 6-8 hours a day! At some point this is criminal. If it was recess I'd begrudging say ok - let them get exercise and learn the most important thing that they should be learning in school: how to be a social animal.

Kids burn out and then quit. Adults simply ask yourself if you'd like to have a day like this. That's your answer. Why are we expecting the schools to be day care centers?

Adults do you enjoy working 10 hour days?

What hogwash.


Talk about starting early to prepare them to hate their jobs! THIS IS WATER!

Interesting, indeed. http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Citizen-Schools/reviews?fcountry=US


Opinion piece: http://www.digitalistmag.com/industries/higher-education-and-research/2014/08/04/key-for-education-reform-and-corporate-success-01257485

More corporations involved in education.

Why not give this money directly to the community's wallets through wage increases in New Haven? Or by making sure parents have jobs. $2 million could go a long way in New Haven.

Extra science? I would love to hear from Clinton Avenue teachers, exactly how much science is being taught on a daily basis now! New Haven students deserve to be engaged in meaningful, inquiry-based science every day beginning in kindergarten.

At a recent BOE Meeting, I addressed the BOE regarding my disappointment with the lack of a science focus in the district, especially for our younger students. The district's goal is to have 85% of 1st graders be "Functional Readers" by the end of 1st grade. Developmentally, first graders are all over the map, they grow and develop at different rates, and then are expected to perform at discriminatory level.

I can guarantee you this, if New Haven students aren't soon engaging in more experiential learning opportunities, especially around science, they will continue to underachieve.

To become a "Functional Reader", kids need prior knowledge and ample experiential opportunities. Functional readers are able to connect what they know about the world, and transfer t it to a new life experience. Without prior knowledge and context, there can be no "Functional Reading".

Has this been discussed and voted on by the BOE?

Also, when did Jason Bartlett become authorized to speak on behalf of the BOE?

Another year. Another experiment on children in some of the most challenged schools in the district. Funny. No one ever suggests these experiments at Worthington Hooker, Nathan Hale, or Edgewood. No one suggests sending a large cadre of inexperienced "fellows" to schools where parents possess the civic cache to pressure a response from those in power.

For many children having access to athletic and cultural activities after (and beyond) school has a positive impact on their self development, physical health, and academic performance. Have they given consideration to how requiring these students to stay in school until 6pm will impact this? Especially since the focus is on children at the middle school level. How will this shape their transition to high school?

If we know that children in certain schools are more likely to be subjected to disciplinary punishment, will extending the school day increase these rates?

Let children be children.

Elm City Imagine cited the long school day as a problem for students and teachers alike:
"During informal surveys of teachers, he asked what would make them feel more inclined to stay on. They told him fewer hours would be a good start."
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/principal_makes_greenfield_tweaks

Shouldn't we learn from this school's experience? Teacher retention must not be a concern, as evidenced by the commitment to use inexperienced AmeriCorps temp workers. Imagine teaching a student math or science at 4:00! The kids will never see the light of day.

Also, based on responses from Wexler Grant's principal, it seems like the schools 'chosen' are out of the loop. Families, students, and staff should be included in conversations to adjust their school model.

Can the district tap teachers interested in improving schools, and ditch the high paid outsider consultants? I'm a New Haven teacher, and I'd love to engage with communities about school improvement plans. You have willing and able 'consultants' right here in New Haven.

Best of luck to these schools and their students.

Another in a long list of education experiments.

I especially agree with the comment above that nothing like is ever suggested to Ct's more affluent communities and schools.

I emphatically agree with the comment above that suggests that we take all the money corporate interests are spending on education and put it into livable wage generation here in New Haven.

This will work because much of the achievement gap in Ct is due to wage and living standard disparity or gaps.

Why is that so hard for our policy makers and politicians to address?

The Citizen Schools' presentation relies upon the statistical bait & switch common to their industry:

The achievement gap is characterized in terms of college COMPLETION based on income (slide 2).

But, Citizen Schools' "success" is reported in terms of college ENROLLMENT (slide 10) and not differentiated by income.

They have not provided credible evidence that longer school days improves students' academic learning, social development, long-term prospects, or overall well-being. It's just flim-flam.

I will take this opportunity to weigh in one of my biggest beefs with the school calendar: How much wasted effort goes into what is considered "a day" for the system.

I would like to end purposeful "half-days," and a take fresh look at what counts as a "holiday." What a "half-day" means is a mobilization of 100% of public & private resources -- buses picking up students, teacher and other staff commuting to & from school, lights & other utilities on, parents making their plans, etc. -- all in the name of a 50% return on investment for a day of "schooling."

My experience has been that half-days are somewhat of a joke. The schedule is jiggered. Expectations are changed. Kids are antsy. Teachers may be thrown for a loop by whatever is or is not happening, just to get a day in the book. Little, in the way of true learning, really happens. I propose that there be no more planned half-days on the calendar.

Make the "day before" a holiday week or weekend a full-day or no-day and adjust accordingly. Look at the school calendar. How many bust-out five-day, no half-day weeks are there? Consistency is one of the many keys to a productive weeks. The very educators "in charge" tell us so. As long as we pepper them with a mish-mash of half-day and full-day interruptions, the less likely we are to graduate students who are educated, skilled, and prepared for how the world really works. Yeah, I could ramble on, but you get the point.

Let's put some focus, purpose, and consistency into the school year.

Thank you for reading my rant.

alexey, you are spot on. The half days are totally unnecessary! It would also make sense (at least to me) to have a March break instead of both February and March breaks. There are far too many interruptions over the course of the school year for my liking.

Half days are the product of a "blame the teachers" smear campaign led by officials lacking the courage to hold accountable every stakeholder in a education. For on these half days, teachers, armed with years of schooling and mastery of expensive licensing testing are subjected to boring, useless "professional development" sessions. I'm not suggesting teachers are above adding to their knowledge bank or refining their skills. What I am saying is that much of the content of most of the PDs through which I've suffered became irrelevant fairly soon thereafter and led by admins who wouldn't last a month in the classroom. These half-day PDs are simply a way for the policy makers, from the governor's office to the mayor's, to "show" the public that they are holding teachers accountable. Which is fine to a point; of course teachers must be accountable. The achievement gap is not about rich and poor. It's about men impregnating women - then leaving mother and child to fend for themselves. It's about parents reinforcing to their kids to learn and to respect both the opportunity and those providing it to them. It's about parents opting to purchase the $40 baseball hat instead of book bags, school supplies and books (books that can be had for free at the library or bought at Dollar General and Five Below). It's about administrators focused on advancing their careers instead of working with teachers to build a productive, cooperative school climate.

It's also about making science a priority which, speaking from experience, it isn't in many schools. The emphasis is on reading (most schools have a 90- to 120-minute literacy block). There's usually an hour for math, an hour for writing and an hour for lunch & enrichment. Science is usually relegated to a 30- to 40-minute block that shares time with social studies. Either or. Some say it's the teacher's responsibility to integrate science. Well, teachers would except that in New Haven each academic dept. has its own $ix-figure leader, its own agenda and doesn't know (or care) what the other's doing. Teachers have demands placed upon them by the literacy and math departments. Neither dept works together, mind you. Each is busy doing its own thing to escape possible scrutiny. Meanwhile, there's school admins who comply like sheep instead of doing what's right for kids.

New Haven has been historically overly top down, and it seems to be getting worse. Departments and district leadership compete and behave like children at times, they just don't get it! Who suffers? Everyone else; parents, teachers, and most of all, kids! When are we going to put on our big boy pants, admit that our system is broken, and bring the people actually working with the
students to the table as Garth has said a number of times, "The answer is in the room".

Plain and simple, New Haven kids are missing out because adults are acting like children. It's all about the adults in control, and not the kids in the room (or falling through the cracks by the hundreds).

If teachers were truly valued and trusted, we'd be asked more often the following; "What do you need to make it work for the kids? How can we help your kids be successful? What skills are lacking, and what do you need to address them?

Maybe we aren't asked these question because... they just don't care!

The sad truth is what we actually hear (from district, my admins get it); "What are you going to do to get them where they need to be? How are you going to do it? How are you going to measure it? How are you going to make sure all of your students needs are met?" How could you possibly address all of this as one person under the current structure of NHPS?

Maybe, I should just shut my trap...

This is sad--this is sickening--who came up with this idea? Who is in charge of our school system?

I like the idea of offering extended day programming to children to keep them off the streets and offering supported homework or tutorial time after school however; I find Sabrina Breland's concerns well founded. Many of the TFA candidates and Americorps students while content bright do not possess the classroom management skills needed to keep the middle school contingent in check. Why not use the money to expand city recreational opportunities and employ parents or other New Haven residents to supervise the expanded day programs? Why must we always out source these opportunities to outside agencies? People who spend very little time in the classrooms with these children and have very limited knowledge of the day to day goings on in the schools always seem to be the people making these decisions. Same old, same old.

So Kaffy, what makes the parents more capable than TFA teachers? Student behavior is affected by many factors, the most important of which is home support. If the parents are indifferent to their child's education and unresponsive (or combative) to a teacher's inquiries, then the student will display poor behavior in school.

Blue,

Your comments against 'parents' hint that you likely resent the sons and daughters of New Haven 'parents' as well. For example - you generalize the inability of all parents in the district to serve in the same capacity as AmeriCorps temp workers. Those outsider White kids must know how to work with children better than the parents - huh?! You point out the new hats over school supplies, as if the White people in the Midwest smoking meth buy their children school supplies. (I brought race into it - I must be racist, not you.) Your comment about men leaving women tops off your light racism with a fat dose of hetero-normative sexism. Our students and their families owe us NOTHING. That is called entitlement; New Haven teachers are not about that. Go teach in Guilford if you want obedient children and lunatic parents.

The "achievement gap" is CERTAINLY about rich and poor. To villainize single parents and people buying new clothes for their children is completely backwards. There are corporations gobbling up billions of dollars in unethical and harmful ways, and the media has YOU hating on poor people of color. As my students would say, "You're cheap."

Tmctague -- Last I checked, there were white students in New Haven schools.

Just because you choose to interpret my very clear post in a way to fit your agenda doesn't make you correct.

If you actually took the time to read my post, you'd see that I called for accountability for ALL stakeholders in education.

I didn't cite race. I said the achievement gap isn't about rich and poor. Are you saying there are no poor white people and no white students in New Haven?

Furthermore, many kids from poor families in New Haven have achieved at high levels and gone on to successful careers. These kids live in the same poor areas and attend the same schools as low achieving kids.

So why is it that some make it and others don't? And why is it that people like you look at the gap and think rich vs poor without addressing WHY. It can't all be on the teachers.