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1-19-14 Longer Year, Longer School Day Under Debate
Star Ledger - Longer school day? No way, many parents and students say … “… Charles Sampson, superintendent of the Freehold Regional High School District, said Christie’s proposal will result in local districts taking a close look at how they use their time. But he said the first step is to understand the goal. "What are we looking to improve? …Like parents, teachers and administrators will have many questions, and many opinions, said Lynne Strickland ‘ of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. "It’s going to require an in-depth conversation," she said, listing issues like contract negotiations, facility upgrades to handle summer temperatures and community goals that would have to be worked out. "Time is money, and the state is short of funding as it is..."

Star Ledger - Longer school day? No way, many parents and students say … “… Charles Sampson, superintendent of the Freehold Regional High School District, said Christie’s proposal will result in local districts taking a close look at how they use their time. But he said the first step is to understand the goal. "What are we looking to improve?  Like parents, teachers and administrators will have many questions, and many opinions, said Lynne Strickland ‘ of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. "It’s going to require an in-depth conversation," she said, listing issues like contract negotiations, facility upgrades to handle summer temperatures and community goals that would have to be worked out. "Time is money, and the state is short of funding as it is..."

By Peggy McGlone  The Star-Ledger Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on Sunday,  January 19, 2014 at 6:30 AM, updated January 19, 2014 at 9:32 PM

As they waited outside the Orange Avenue School one day last week for the dismissal bell to ring, a few dozen Cranford parents debated the merits of Gov. Chris Christie’s call for New Jersey students to spend more time in school.

"They’re in class enough," Scott Laniewski said.

"And the little ones need time to play," added Michelle Howlett, a former special education teacher. "They need downtime."

Standing near a swing set a few yards away, Barry O’Donovan disagreed. "I think they should have a longer year. They don’t go to school enough," he said. "And they’ll learn more."

The discussions are happening at schools and playgrounds around the state, as parents, educators and students discuss the benefits and drawbacks of more school time. Some parents welcome the idea, while others complain that summer vacation is too short already. Jersey’s July temperatures are too hot for school, said some. Others said the kids need time to relax.

"By the end of the day she’s tired," Marisol Quintero of Elizabeth said about her daughter in kindergarten.

"It would be good for parents," said Boonton resident Ingrid Florez, mother of a fifth-grader. "We wouldn’t need to pay for aftercare or babysitting."

In his State of the State address last week, Christie said New Jersey students need more class time to remain competitive, but parent Kevin Cuddihy said he wondered if adding more time was the solution.

"I don’t know that more days would make us more competitive, and more competitive with whom?" asked Cuddihy, a former private school principal. "There has to be a more creative way than simply adding days. You need improved teaching, more professional development."

New Jersey kids respond to Gov. Chris Christie's longer school year proposal

 

In his 2014 State of the State address, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proposed requiring longer school days and a longer school year. The next day, Jan. 15, 2014, Ledger Live staked out a Chuck E. Cheese in Edison, New Jersey to get the response from the constituency most affected by the proposal. (Video by Andre Malok / The Star-Ledger)

Many parents and educators said they need more information before making up their minds. But the proposal "quite deliberately doesn’t include any details," Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said. "It should not be interpreted as one size fits all."

Instead, the governor has called for "analysis, research and recommendations," Cerf said. "We will undertake that, and hope to do so in an inclusive way."

Charles Sampson, superintendent of the Freehold Regional High School District, said Christie’s proposal will result in local districts taking a close look at how they use their time. But he said the first step is to understand the goal.

"What are we looking to improve? If it is to improve academic achievement on standardized tests, that is a more specific conversation than providing extended opportunities for children," he said. "You’re going to have very different reactions across the state, at the local level, and across households."

More class time is a concept that has been gaining steam around the country, and it is a critical piece of the growing charter school movement. The New Jersey Charter Social Association reports 90 percent of the state’s charter schools have a longer day, an average 50 minutes more than traditional public schools. Charter schools average 186 days each year, six more than the state-required 180 days. Together they add nearly 30 days of school a year.

"The promise of charter schools was the ability to innovate with the hope that successful innovation could be utilized across public education," the association’s CEO, Carlos Perez, said. "The longer school day is an innovation whose time has come for greater use."

When pressed, parents prefer longer days to more days.

"If it’s a little more time each day, I can live with that," Laniewski said. "As far as taking time from summer, I definitely don’t like that."

That doesn’t surprise Sarah Pitcock, CEO of the National Summer Learning Association in Baltimore, which has worked with Newark schools and nonprofit corporations to examine the city’s summer offerings.

"Summer is idealized in many families," Pitcock said. "But more and more, the reality of summer for most kids is not riding bikes, playing in the park, or swimming until the sun goes down. It’s sitting on the couch playing video games all day because parents are at work and they’re not allowed outside."

Pitcock said research shows some students lose skills over the summer break. "For low-income kids, it’s not that they stay in place; they go back two or three months behind where they finished the year before."

Many questions

Like parents, teachers and administrators will have many questions, and many opinions, said Lynne Strickland of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. "It’s going to require an in-depth conversation," she said, listing issues like contract negotiations, facility upgrades to handle summer temperatures and community goals that would have to be worked out. "Time is money, and the state is short of funding as it is."

But it is a conversation worth having, she said. "You wouldn’t want to stop something that will help students grow, but we need to learn a whole lot more."

Not so fast, said 9-year-old Daniel Nigro, a fourth-grader at Orange Avenue School. "I don’t think that should happen because most kids don’t really like school," he said.

"But if I had to, I’d say, yeah, I could stay until 3:30 or 4," Daniel said. "As long as there was math."