Looks as though Kamala Harris has introduced a bill to make the school day 8 am to 6 pm everyday except for weekends, federal holiday and emergencies.
The Family Friendly Schools Act seeks to better align school hours with parents work hours.
The school day would run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with no closures, except for weekends, federal holidays, and emergencies.
First glance. Cool, more education for our kids!
Nope!
Under Harris’ bill, teachers and faculty members are not required to work additional hours, and the extra time would be used for extracurricular activities. Teachers would be allowed to sign up for extra shifts and be paid the rate they get during normal school hours.
Turning the schools into daycare centers, and teachers into babysitters.
This bill should be shot down, and shot down FAST.
If they don’t get enough teachers to volunteer — who is going to look after the little rascals?
So what happens if not enough teachers want to volunteer (technically they are working overtime and shoudl get overtime pay, but the write up says they would only get their regular pay)?
What kind of extracaricular programs are they going to do? Will they be educational in nature? Or will they be designed to further polute the minds of children with Democratic thinking?
culturally relevant, linguistically accessible, developmentally appropriate academic, athletic, or enrichment opportunities for students
What is a culturally relevant activity? How about developmentally appropriate?
Do not close for parent-teacher conferences, professional development, or any other reason without offering fullday enrichment activities free of charge for students;
When parent teacher conferences are going during the day – who will be babysitting the kids who will all be required to be there all day? Or when they have a professional development day (you know that means the teachers are learning, but now the kids will be required to be in school without teachers).
That’s not what the article says. They would be paid an hourly rate based upon their regular salary. Ofcourse this would all be paid at the taxpayers expense.
So what’s your beef about this bill? That kids will be able to stay in a safe supervised situation after school while their parents work? It sounds like a good idea. Are you mad that teachers won’t be forced to work until 6?
we have this in Canada, they run till 6. Pretty much there are two teachers who supervise the kid as they play outside in the summer / in the gym during the winter.
after school program exist in pretty much every community in America.
When I was growing up, they were called Latchkey Kids. Even though the definition doesn’t match, that’s what we called the kids in the after school programs.
my niece is in after school program all she does is play in the gym and do art and crafts, its good because it allow both her parent to work full time without having to worry where their 5 year old daughter is.
But the term latchkey kids actually means kids who go home to an empty house and let themselves in and wait alone for their parents. Sounds like a bad idea in today’s world. After-school care would make them the opposite of latchkey kids.