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California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

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Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#181

Post by francisofascii »

_coveredInBees wrote: post #134
meristem wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, the school systems still rely on one parent at home. It is not just drop off and pick up times: school activities, parent-teacher conferences, etc. For example, in the SF Unified District, school tours for parents of kids entering kindergarten, middle school and high school are during the school hours, mostly in the morning. It is all built around the expectation of a parent at home or a job structure…

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributio…

At many schools the before care/after care staff is not comprised of teachers. But I bet some might sign up for extra hours either before or after school for extra cash.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#182

Post by TuringNYC »

_coveredInBees wrote: post #134
meristem wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, the school systems still rely on one parent at home. It is not just drop off and pick up times: school activities, parent-teacher conferences, etc. For example, in the SF Unified District, school tours for parents of kids entering kindergarten, middle school and high school are during the school hours, mostly in the morning. It is all built around the expectation of a parent at home or a job structure…

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributio…

That assumes a single school employee covers the entire span. Our school in NYC had different shifts — so 7am class teachers were not the same ones doing late afternoon classes.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#183

Post by mc32 »

kaitai wrote: post #169
mc32 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people with jobs —even low paying jobs have newish smartphones and tablets. There likely are some parents who can’t afford those, but those parents are vanishingly small. Often times parents think that they “provide” the child and the school does the rest. Good parents, poor or otherwise know that it’s mostly on the parents to guide the kids.

In some countries, schools exist to teach students, rather than simply warehousing them and saying it's parents' fault for not teaching everything in the hours from 3 pm - 10 pm and weekends. Truly, your comment does reflect the attitude of much of the teaching establishment: if children can't learn to read from their parents, they're hopeless [1]; if children can't learn math from their parents, they're hopeless. It…

Teachers can't bear to carry that load themselves. That's ridiculous. Parents have a load to carry. Parenting isn't easy. I know people whose idea or rearing is limited to feeding, dressing and sending their kids to school. "Kids are not expensive" is what they tell me.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#184

Post by learc83 »

whymsicalburito wrote: post #96
35787 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for me. Public schools are so horrible that it drives me insane just to think about it. And people brush it off because of some vague notion that there’s no other choice. Look at billy eilish. She’s fantastic and very successful and she was homeschooled. Palmer luckey who founded oculus and is now worth something like 500 million dollars, homeschooled. “I can’t afford homeschooling. I have never even tri…

Of course there are exceptions, but most homeschooled people I've met have displayed some sort of social deficiency. I wouldn't support a blanket statement that the solution is more home schooling.

I'd be very careful of making statements like that. Confirmation bias is a very dangerous thing. How many well adjusted home schooled people have you met without realizing or remembering they were home schooled?

You have to look at studies to have any hope of fairly evaluating the efficacy of home school.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#185

Post by _coveredInBees »

francisofascii wrote: post #181
_coveredInBees wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributio…

At many schools the before care/after care staff is not comprised of teachers. But I bet some might sign up for extra hours either before or after school for extra cash.

Sure, but all the activities the OP complains about - parent teacher conferences, kindergarten/classroom tours, etc. all require the actual teachers involvement so it seems perfectly reasonable that those activities would occur during regular working hours. Plenty of schools offer before/after care for families with working parents so that they can drop-off/pick up their kids before/after work. I don't think that is an issue for anyone. But I think it is unreasonable to expect teachers at schools to work outside normal hours just for the convenience of parents with jobs who can't even take a few hours off work for things that they obviously deem important. That's an unreasonable burden to place on teachers, and in general seems like a waste of taxpayer money if they had to be paid overtime just to accommodate a small fraction of parents.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#187

Post by thrower123 »

_coveredInBees wrote: post #185
francisofascii wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At many schools the before care/after care staff is not comprised of teachers. But I bet some might sign up for extra hours either before or after school for extra cash.

Sure, but all the activities the OP complains about - parent teacher conferences, kindergarten/classroom tours, etc. all require the actual teachers involvement so it seems perfectly reasonable that those activities would occur during regular working hours. Plenty of schools offer before/after care for families with working parents so that they can drop-off/pick up their kids before/after work. I don't think that is…

Are parent/teacher conferences not built into the schedule as working hours? If I recall correctly from my mother, who was a school teacher, they did these twice a year and those eight hours were counted as one of the days that they worked in their contract. Maybe that is not universally negotiated.

As she was a special ed teacher, she also had a whole slate of other meetings with parents to go over IEPs and testing, and if those were before 8 am or after 3 pm, she was paid an hourly rate for those meetings.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#188

Post by dev_dull »

TuringNYC wrote: post #182
_coveredInBees wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributio…

That assumes a single school employee covers the entire span. Our school in NYC had different shifts — so 7am class teachers were not the same ones doing late afternoon classes.

To me this sounds line a great way to give teachers non-curricular overtime pay. It’s good for all parties involved to have a face-to-face relationship, and a way for our public school teachers to supplement their income if they so desire.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#189

Post by reaperducer »

mc32 wrote: post #141
corey_moncure wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are grade schoolers doing assignments that can't reasonably be completed on a raspberry pi grade computer or lower? It's difficult for me to imagine it, or the family that has two working parents yet legitimately can't fit $40 into the budget over the entirety of their child's career in school.

Most people with jobs —even low paying jobs have newish smartphones and tablets. There likely are some parents who can’t afford those, but those parents are vanishingly small. Often times parents think that they “provide” the child and the school does the rest. Good parents, poor or otherwise know that it’s mostly on the parents to guide the kids.

Most people with jobs —even low paying jobs have newish smartphones and tablets.

As someone who occasionally has to work with the working poor, I can tell you this is completely false.

Here's one example: I work in healthcare. We can't send text messages to people about their medical conditions, etc... because a startling number of working poor families not only have only a flip phone, but that phone is shared among several families.

Let me state that again: A single flip phone will be used by eight to ten people in three or four different families.

To think that anyone with a job just has a computer/table/smartphone lying around for their kid to do his homework on is just living in a fantasy land.

Re: California’s new law bans schools from starting before 8am

#190

Post by jelliclesfarm »

I don’t know what to say..I grew up in India. My mom would wake me up at 4.30, make me a hot beverage and go back to sleep. I would study in the early hours because she believed that early morning is the best time for the mind to absorb and retain what I study.

Go for a brisk walk at 6.00 and leave for school by 7.15-7.30. School was from 8.30-3.30. 8.00-8.30 was morning assembly which was mandatory.

Extra curricular activities like music or dance or outdoor sports till sunset(6.00). My grandmother won’t let me in before 6.00 because she thought that outdoor play was important and in the sun. Freshen up and homework till 8.00. Dinner and then TV time. Reading and to bed by 9.00-9.30.

In high school, less play and more classes. But these tutoring classes were outside. And I would leave by 5.00 to catch the bus to get to them. I was old enough to travel by myself. I loved school. I loved my teachers.

My math tutor from 1989..we keep in touch and she is now teaching me Indian classical music by whatsapp video chat thrice a week. I call her once a year and this year I told her I am joining a neighborhood music group. She made me sing. Entirely disapproved my technique and we started classes immediately.

If my teachers asked me ‘jump’, I would. My school years were the best years of my life. I don’t think I would have had this experience had I grown up in CA in this time and age..and gone to public schools here. Case in point: The public school teachers in my Bay Area city recruit parents and students to strike in their support during their union wage negotiations. It’s a travesty.

I think children should wake up earlier. It’s delightful to wake up before dawn and have a goal. The rest of the day at school becomes easy peasy.

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