Schools go to four-day school week, make lots of other cuts thanks to high fuel prices
Photo by iboy_daniel. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
All of those reduced-fuel-use school buses (examples here and here) can't help some school systems continue on as normal in the current economy. Thanks to high fuel prices - among other reasons - the four-day "work" week that is gaining currency at businesses nationwide is spreading to at least 15 more school districts across the U.S., according to a new article by the AP. Last year, the AP says, around 100 districts dropped a day. For one school system highlighted in the article, cutting a day out of the school week (while making each class the rest of the week ten minutes longer) will save $65,000 in fuel costs (I'm guessing per year, but the AP doesn't say. With only 700 students, I can't imagine they're paying that much per week or month).
The article mentions other cost-saving methods that schools and parents are turning to this year. On transportation issues, the article mentions that field trips are being slashed while weekend athletic trips might be done through private car pools instead of school buses at some schools. At a school in Alabama, the daily buses to and from school will no longer stop at each house but at neighborhood stops instead (this makes a lot of sense) and at a school in California, high school students won't get to use the bus at all (not so sure about this one, from an environmental viewpoint).
[Source: AP]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Richard 1:50PM (8/18/2008)
I don't this is going to push a lot of buttons with overprotective parents and the "not my kid" crowd, but how about some old fashioned thinking here, ever heard of a bicycle? I used to ride my bike to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways!! Could help with the obesity in this country (USA), and save some gas as well. I also could teach a lesson on appreciation for things, such as back in the day, you were lucky to ride in a car or bus, it wasn't your right!
That said, I know there's going to be a parent or two that says their school is too far to ride a bike to school, well, so be it. You get up early and take your kid to school, or move closer. Just my opinion, not a catch all solution, but a take responsibility for yourself proposition. After all, when we get older and we have to get a job, where is the school bus then?
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MarkR 2:15PM (8/18/2008)
Just one of the problems with the 4 day school week, is all the 2 income parents that work 5 days a week.
Like I've said before and will say it again we need to institute no regular bus pickups within 2 miles of the school. God forbid that would be viewed as "unfare."
However that being said, we've enrolled our Kindergartner in private school, because, in my opinion on the national and local level the public school systems are on the verge of collapse. The moral value has decayed to horific levels, special interests groups such as LULAC and ACLU rule the schools and have ruined them with law suits and resulting read tape. And I want my kid to go to a school where there are rules. not the free for all that is in public schools these days.
The school my children would have gone to is rated exemplary by the state, but I view it as barely passing, if passing at all.
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MarkR 2:24PM (8/18/2008)
OH and I almost forgot.
lets put it this way when public school teachers have to carry guns to class to protect themselves you know you've got a big problem.
per NPR: Texas Teachers Can Carry Guns
Heres the tinyurl link: http://tinyurl.com/5l334z
heres the original link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93697446&ft=1&f=1001
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TX CHL Instructor 8:45AM (8/19/2008)
"when public school teachers have to carry guns to class to protect themselves" --MarkR
First of all (recognizing that this is totally off-topic, but I can't let this sort of idiocy go unchallenged), teachers do not *have* to carry guns, period. Never have, never will. That is a logical fallacy known as the "excluded middle".
The main reason teachers *should* carry concealed handguns (under license) in school is that criminals prefer 'soft' targets (i.e. targets that can't shoot back). Mass shootings ALWAYS occur in "gun free" zones, because that's where the shooter doesn't have to worry about getting stopped by an armed citizen before he can shoot very many people.
Stiff prison sentences are nowhere near as good a crime deterrent as the possibility of being killed by your intended victim.
Back on topic: The cure for the energy problem is to eliminate the school bus. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, such as decentralized schools, or even telecommuting for situations that otherwise require long travel. Even more basic, get the government the hell out of the education business, and let parents solve the problems themselves.
Epyx 2:39PM (8/18/2008)
How about having more kids walk to school rather than add two hours to the day? What do they do about after school activities? Kids would be getting home after 8pm and then starting homework. This is a poor solution and may cause problems with the primary mission of education.
The district I live in does not bus any kids to school. ALL kids walk or ride bikes to school - K-12! Of course we have great sidewalks and the kids have a safe way to walk. Walking should be the standard and not the exception. Our district is one of the larger schools in the area and one of the best acedemically in the state. I am willing to bet the kids are in far better physical shape than the standard as well. Even with just a mile or less walk a day it is more excercise than many kids would get otherwise.
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Epyx 5:53PM (8/18/2008)
Oh by the way I live in PA, so we get bad weather in the winter. The kids make it to school just fine. If the wind chill gets bad they call off school just like they do for the kids that ride the buses in other school districts. Snow is the same - the teachers still have to drive in unless they live in the district as well.
Wildgoosechase 5:47PM (8/18/2008)
Sure I'll have my kids walk 4 miles during winter when the wind chill brings it to a balmy -22 degrees outside... As far as 2 income families, are schools a place for eduacation or daycare? How about eliminating special education for the truly developmentally disabled. I'm not talking the "little slow" crowd but the children whose conditions leave them unlikely to live past 22 and if they do they will never be able to hold a job. Public education is not daycare, it is an investment to create higher earning taxpayers. I'd love to see telecommuting, have web-based lectures from the top 10% of teachers in classrooms of 100,000 kids.
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Richard 7:52PM (8/18/2008)
Uhmmm, What?
catherine 3:04AM (8/19/2008)
Mark, I couldn't believe that either. It's like telling kids that violence doesn't solve anything ,but still having corporal punishment. The school's argument was that the closest law was 20 minutes away and the freeway runs nearby . So they have it in their heads that some deranged person is going to pull off the freeway on a whim and go shooting in the school. They don't mention that its more likely some kid of going to bbring in a gun he stole from his Dad 's dresser and the teacher is then going to have to shoot a child in the face. Not to mention the kids will find out which teacher is packing ( you know they will) and the gun could easily be stolen and used which would then make the teacher and the school liable . It's so much easier to lock a school down like an office building and have metal detectors if this is such a huge risk. The irony in all this is that school violence is down and children in this country are much much safer than they have ever been in history. Hell, the year that Columbine happened was statisically the lowest year of school deaths on record . Kids have been getting killed in schools for decades,it didn't just start yesterday. Sorry to get off topic ,but when I read this newstory I just flipped out. *sigh*
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motorman 7:52AM (8/19/2008)
they could cut the fuel bill for the buses in half if they left all but one at the school during the day and used that bus to take the drivers back to the bus garage and then use the same bus to take the drivers back to the school to drive their buses.
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janelle 8:33AM (8/19/2008)
I just wonder how this will affect parents who don't have 4-day workweeks...
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bill 9:45AM (8/19/2008)
I wonder how much of this problem could be solved if the teachers unions actually spent their money on education and not on political campaigns for the purpose of electing liberal Democrats. We are talking about millions of dollars being pissed down a rat hole by spending it on politics. What exactly does that have to do with learning how to read, write, and do math?
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BGJ 10:52AM (8/19/2008)
Because the union exists to make being a teacher attractive enough so that schools have enough people to hire as teachers. The union does not exist to spend money on education, that is the government's job. That is why they promote "liberal democrats" who actually care about education.
Republicans care more about big business and have been trying to dismantle public education for decades so that a profit can be made without caring if children actually become educated.
There is a reason why every teacher is opposed to No Child Left Behind. A stupid idea by a republican to force schools to teach kids how to pass a test, and not teach kids a well rounded curriculum.
Whopper 12:54PM (8/19/2008)
My wife was a teacher in an inner-city school; until two of her students (4th grade) were shot to death in a drive-by shooting in front of her eyes. She still has nightmares five years later.
She woulld have quite anyway. She had students who couldn't read at grade level but she was chastized for bringing in books from a lower level that they could read. (Unable to read at grade level the students become bored and a discipline problem - simple!) School administrators changed grades and passed students that she knew needed to be held back. She loved those kids, mostly minority. She still gets Christmas cards from some of the parents who knew what she did for them.
From meeting her fellow teachers, my limited experience says that our schools are filled with a large number of good teachers handicapped by incapable administrators and uninterested parents.
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