The Observation Deck

WTAM had a sound bite in the news this morning that the state of Ohio is pushing to increase the minimum number of school days from 180 to 200.

Is this official? This would equate to an additional month of school for the kids. Has the teachers union gotten wind of this yet?

I'm wondering if they have considered the option of going to longer school days instead of cutting into the summer break. seems to me that instead of adding days, they could just add another hour to the school day, which might also help some parents who have to manage after school care.

Anyone know the details about this?

I was just reading about this this morning. One of the benefits of having a longer school year is less time off and more retention of information. When we lived out west our children attended year round school (I did too growing up in CA) and one of the benefits of year round schooling is less time is spent re-teaching lost information. I personally would not be apposed to a longer school year and I would love year round but I know it won't happen out year, that is just my pipe dream.

I vote for year round school. I know many places that do this and it seems to be working. Kids forget stuff during the summer and spend the first few months going over what was lost, so with that, there is not enough time to learn more.

I think Gov. Strickland just lost the "kid" vote!!!!!!!

Anything kids are going to forget over the summer, they're going to forget within months of graduation anyway.