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Fewer school days mean less driving
School bus
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Tess Vigeland: Today's high gas prices are forcing some heavy users of fuel to reconsider business as usual. Among them, school districts. Alisa Roth reports.
Alisa Roth: It's like having a snow day once a week. When students in rural Caldwell Parish, Louisiana go back to school in September, they'll only have four days of classes.
The district only has about 1,700 students. But they're scattered over a wide area. So the school buses drive more than a thousand miles a day.
John Sartin is superintendent of the district:
John Sartin: In figuring the amount of savings not only from the fuel but also from water and gas and electricity, we believe we'll have a significant savings.
Sartin thinks the district could save more than $100,000 a year. Caldwell joins a handful of other school districts around the country that have made similar calculations.
He promises quality won't be comprised. The four days will be longer and more compact. And off days will be used for remedial classes and teacher training.
Of course, working parents will be left to sort out child care for the extra day. But the local library hopes to help out; it's thinking about extending its summer children's program into the fall.
In New York, I'm Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
The school year is too long, there needs to be less days in the school year. Kids don't enjoy staying at school for seven hours or less. It takes up too much soical tine in their life. Parents probably don't enjoy waking up at 7:00 a.m. or even earier. They also might not enjoy the gas they waste drivivng to a school then back, and then maybe if the parents pick up thier kids and go back home for five days. The same thing for school buses they have to go to more than on place to pick up kids then back, and then driving to the school and back. That's what I think about the amount of days in the school year.
The biggest problem with this idea is the additional costs to working parents. It will not save them in gas, since their child or children still require daycare on the days they have no school.
Most daycares charge additional fees for the entire day versus before and after school. For our son, we have to pay an additional $25 a day on school holidays that are for the school, not the parents, such as teacher in service days; meaning parents could have to pay $100 a month or more in additional childcare costs.
On top of all the other rising costs, gas, food, electricity, etc… this could really cause more problems for families who are already struggling to get by.
Ridiculous. The school day is long enough as it is, and I don't mean for the average student. The average teacher can't keep kids on track at the end of the day as it is, so giving kids an 8 hour day is going to improve things? The school _may_ save $100,000 a year, while at the same time impairing the opportunity for each and everyone of their students making $100,000 a year. Take the subsidies away from the farms, oil companies, and give them to the schools...
