Longer Breaks In Montana Schools

A lot of parents are shaking their heads at the consideration of a four-day school week, and a longer school day. Shorter school weeks or longer school days are reasonable solutions when there is a shortage of funding, or possible budget cuts coming to the school district. This solution has many mixed opinions from parents, teachers and school board members.

Students wouldn't be late for class if they had the time to get ready, sleep longer, and eat breakfast. When some students aren't ready, their parent or guardian leaves them behind causing them to either not go to school or be late. There would not be as much skipping school from tiredness and laziness from having to wake up so early, and there would be less zeros in the grade book for late papers. Classes could even do group activities for students being there. Teachers frequently complain about absences, so why not help out with the

It would give the a little space to breathe a minute, and sit with friends. It would take away some of their stress, to sit and talk with some of their friends. Instead of the alternative of sitting there worried over how much time you have, and trying to choke down your food to finish it. Sometimes not even getting to say a word to anyone. Kids already stress enough over their work, and out of school activities, or things happening a home. So why do they need anymore stress? Stress causes kids to do bad academically, because it wears them down, making it hard for them to do their best. Kids might even get a little time to do some of their work at lunch, if given even a little bit of extra time. If you have forgotten an assignment, and you don't have study hall or panther time you're out of luck. Unless you do it at lunch, but with how much time were given now, that would mean giving up eating.

I do like the idea of freshman aloud off campus but I don’t really have to worry about that anymore now that I am a junior in high school and moving on along with the rest of us in classroom. Therefore we should all agree that a longer lunch break is a better rule to change.

Adding just an extra ten minutes to each class, the new schedule would create the potential for students to have more homework time, lab time, learning time, and/or valuable free time to read for pleasure, relax with music, draw, etc. (Hadfield). Especially as students get older and more involved in extracurriculars and rigorous academic courses, the need for any spare moment to get assignments done, study, or even sleep increases. When this time is unavailable or extremely hard to get, students are more likely to fall asleep in class, miss school due to illness, misbehave, cheat, hand in incomplete assignments, or drop out altogether. The same is largely true for teachers. The more homework turned in by students, the more grading has to be done by teachers who are already exhausted from a long, often repetitive day of work. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the fact that this extra time should not be used to cram in larger quantities of learning standards or homework problems, but rather to enhance the quality of the already demanding school regulations that are in schools

In the article Is Time On Your Side? by Breanna Muses she states “On one hand it will be better on both students and teachers. Both would be more ready and prepared. Teachers would have more time to breath and prepare for the next class, especially if it’s a different grade level” (2). If you have a little more time before the next class, students will be able to have time to study. Also to get everything ready, by taking out notes or getting a project together. By doing this they will be able to get in the right mindset and be prepared.

Have you ever realized that most students forget everything they learned from during their school year when they go on long breaks such as summer vacation? Maybe that could change. School time should be extended and the school year should be longer to improve academic scores and overall performance on school work.

When I say time, I mean students getting to school on time, classes starting on time and transition time between classes. For some classes there is about a 10 minute gap between when class actually starts and when class is supposed to start according to the schedule. This leaves a lot of “free time” in between certain classes or inside of a classroom without nothing going on because the teacher has not started instructional time. As a student I love it, but as a principle I would feel as though the school is losing productivity with a teacher just sitting in another room or not even being there at all while the students loiter or just aimlessly wonder through the hallways or sit in front of the door. Another thing I find to be interesting is how some students leave during lunch to make sure they get to class on time while the teacher is still down the hill in the main building, I don’t take that class but what do the students do while they are up there and their teacher is down here? Do they go into the class room and just sit up there by themselves? Or do they do the same thing some of the students in the RVEC building do and just sit outside door. As a student I don’t know what goes on like that, but as a principle I would think that is another way lunch time transitions can be better managed so that the students and teachers are where they need to be when class needs to

     Truancy can occur among students if an open campus is accepted. If students have the privilege to leave school for fifty whole minutes on their own, then they have the freedom to not come back. It would break the trust between students and educators, and harsher rules would have to be enforced on the open campus rule. Numerous students who decide to ditch the remaining periods would

Education today has a common goal of making things better in whatever way possible. The most popular trend seems to be to add more school hours, extend days, and lengthen the school year. There is a trend however, that is gaining popularity among a few rural school districts. This idea

Have you ever had a child stay up all night just trying to finish assignments? Should students lunch and recess be longer? I think so. The kids would have more time to take a break from class and calm down so their not so stressed during class. They wouldn’t have to take in so much information at one time and would be able to remember more of what the teacher is trying to teach them.

The students could use this time to go home or somewhere to eat food they want to eat and hang out with there friends. Also when students are at school the day seem long with a break in there it make it a little shorter. “We sit in classrooms ALL day. No sunlight, no fresh air. Just the captivity of some grey walls and a hallway cramped up constantly with other people.

Therefore, passing periods should be extended to 10 minutes since there are upsides and very few downsides, the upsides: Have more time to get to their classes, students can be spared from the worst

This schedule change might impact after school sports and clubs, but not by much. It would only involve starting games and practices an hour later, a mere cost for that extra hour of sleep. The bus drivers would simply switch which kids they pick up first. The parents would be grateful to have their little kids out of the house earlier. The students would reap the benefits in their test scores. The small price for this change would benefit everyone.

If i had to choose whether we get extended time between classes it would be a no. Because the school days would be longer and it would be more of a mess than it already is, the hallways would be more crowded, and it would make it harder for us to get into our lockers.