school schedules

Nearly every major school system has a website that has the schedule postedfor the entire year. Some include the half day; School system in NYC does.
If they don't then go the the local school board office--especially if you don't want to encounter the brats--and ask for a COMPLETE schedule. And while you're at it complain about the kids' behaviour on the bus route you take. NYC will revoke kids' metro cards if they cause a rukus on public transportation and after 9/11 every disturbance is looked after.
Nothing will happen unless we speak up. Don't be afraid to do so--LOUD AND OFTEN!!

Purpltchr

Our district here is so overcrowded, that they instituted a year- around school program about 10 years ago. It's pure hell. There's always brats on vacation, and they're never all in school at the same time. If I'd known about this when I moved to the area, I wouldn't have moved here. It's always summer for someone!

Hell, I don't think there's even a minimum attendance policy in our school district any more. Every once in a while I'll take some time off work in the middle of the week, on a day when school is supposedly in session, just to do some shopping, get stuff done, or have some slack time. I always see school age kids out with their mothers out clogging everything up, getting in the way and being generally annoying. I mean, what the hell...what kind of parent lets their kid take a sick day at school to take them shopping at the mall? I know that I had to cross the vomit line for my mom to let me stay home. I did have a friend whose Mom would let her stay home sick from school if she went to a concert and didn't get home until late (my mom didn't), but then she had to stay home, do chores or school work, and certainly wasn't allowed to roam the malls.

If my grades were good, occasionally my mom would let me play hookey. But, I wasn't allowed out, because she was afraid that she'd get in trouble for letting me have a "mental health day."

Hi Feh...I've noticed the sprogs running around during the school day in this part of Wisconsin too. Thought maybe it was just a rural problem, but I guess not.

Maybe some of these "young-uns" are homeschooled and out on a shopping break!

Much of this BS with school schedules has to do with teachers and their unions. They are constantly chipping away at instruction time. For example, one district here now has late starts on certain days so that teachers can have more "collaborative time" which probably means hanging out and BSing in the teachers' lounge. Then there are the "Learning Improvement Days" during which there is no school. Ironic, huh?

Then there are the constant holidays and vacations and breaks, not to mention summer vacation during which many kids lose ground. So much time is wasted both at the end of the school year because of "gearing down" for summer break, and at the beginning of the school year for "gearing up." Summer vacation is an antiquated holdover that should be elimiinated.

And we wonder why kids today are so goddamn stupid and illiterate. Yes, lame parenting is also responsible for much of this, as is too much focus on sports. We are the laughingstock of the industrialized world with our public "education" system. As a taxpayer, I feel extremely ripped off paying for this ridiculousness!

Donning flameproof suit now. I need it every time I argue this, it seems.

I see it too, it makes me sick. Glad to see my tax dollars are going towards producing a society of uneducated, stupid brats that will grow up to reproduce equally entitlement-minded, uneducated brats.

I was never allowed to stay home except with a migraine (with which I am still plagued today), a fever or vomiting. Pahrunts today leave their kids stay home if they are just plain too tired or if there is some big sale at the maul. What a great thing to teach your kids.