and on the 5th day, they rested ...

Summary of the Introduced Bill
HB 1534 -- Four-Day School Week

Sponsor: Kingery

This bill allows school districts to establish a four-day week
upon a majority vote of the school board. The number of required
hours in a school year remains at 1,044, but the number of days
will be 142 rather than 174.

alright, i first heard about this as an intro on the news. never did hear the actual story because i had to leave the house before the actual story came on (that's one of my pet peeves about the news. everything that i am interested in, is buried late, late, late in the program, but, that's another blog topic for a later date ...).

anyway, i decided to figure out what was going on. if you click the title of this post, you should link up to the story that i read.

anyway, after all of the dust has settled, i have one question ...

WHO'S WITH THE KIDS ON THAT 5TH DAY?

WHO'S BEARING THE COST FOR THE KIDS ON THAT 5TH DAY?

WHO'S REALLY SAVING MONEY?

well, i'm thinking, that while the schools are saving money on that 5 th day, that parents are the ones bearing that cost in childcare expenses of some sort.

or am i wrong? have i missed something?

174-142=32

so, that's 32 days that kids aren't in school. a little over a month.

using one school district's rate for all day care, of $22.50 per kid per day, that's an additional cost of $720. per year, per kid (ok maybe a little less as there is a $1.00 per day discount for additional kids) - NOT to mention additional fuel costs for parental pick up and drop off and lunches. so, i'm thinking that increases costs for the parent to about roughly $1000 extra per kid per year.

have i missed something? am i wrong about this?

whereas things are tough all over, seems like in missouri, things are just getting tougher.

moreover, for kids who are old enough to stay at home on that 5th day - uh, what are they doing? hanging out? sleeping? playing video games? cleaning their rooms? robbing my house? WHAT?

and doesn't this somehow mitigate the importance of education? i mean, can you really learn and retain the same amount of information in 8 months as opposed to 9 months?

the article states that the 4-day school-week is used mostly in rural areas.

hmmmmm, when i think about a rural area, that doesn't really bring to mind affluence, or low drop-out rate.

the article also states that 16 states across the country have adopted the 4-day school week.

hmmmmm, seems to me that i just saw a commercial where the us was WAY BEHIND in educational standards compared to other countries.

does anyone but me see a problem here?

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