One Teacher who hates the idea!

This comes from a teacher in Texas

Now past the very obvious pro that you would have 3-day weekends every week, I can only see the cons in this situation.

1. Attention span and concentration. Come 9th period (3:05-3:55) my students are already barely capable of maintaining focus and concentration for the majority of the period. Extending the day out to (gasp) 5:30 might possibly kill me. There better be recess included in this extra time, and yes, I mean recess for teenagers. You have no idea how much they need it. I'll even spring for the Axe to spray them down when they come back in all sweaty and stinky.

2. Curriculum timingI already have to rush through concepts because of lack of time in the school year and the sheer volume of concepts that must be taught, compounded by many days lost for testing (field testing, district testing, TAKS testing). How in the world do you expect me to fit all that curriculum (which already gets short-changed) into an even smaller time frame? Not going to happen.

3. TestingThe center of every teachers life. Again I go to the time issue. My entire teaching career revolves around testing. You give me less time to prepare my students and expect me to meet the fantastic standards of NCLB, or those of my highly demanding district? I think I'll use my Friday's off for therapy, thank you very much.

4. My Friday'sWOO HOO! I get every Friday off! I am going to sleep in, go shopping, go see a movie, anything I want! But wait.... my teaching days don't end til 5:30, and I am NOT staying at the school until 8 everyday! How is all my work going to get done? I would sleep in no matter how much work I had to do, but these Friday's would be spent working.

5. Parents: Your district just approved a 4-day school week. You now either have to take Fridays off to care for your child or find suitable childcare. Now let me tell you, Lancaster is not that big of a city and there is NO WAY the childcare system there is capable of handling an influx of thousands of elementary school kids for one day a week.

6. HS Students: You are learning to be a mature adult. You have a job. You can only work until a certain time due to child labor laws. Your new school schedule may have easily cut 2-3 hours off your schedule each day, except Friday, which you now have off to compete with any other worker who is normally scheduled during the day. Good luck with that.