Long hard road to longer school day
Posted Jan 19, 2012 10:55:34 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A Halifax education consultant is congratulating Nova Scotia’s Education Minister as she looks to lengthen the school day for elementary school students.
Minister Ramona Jennex said she is considering increasing the time young students spend in classrooms as reading, writing and math scores are deteriorating in Grades 3 to 6.
“She’s bitten off a huge issue. Let’s hope it leads somewhere,” said Paul Bennett, director of Schoolhouse Consulting. “She’s realized that the amount of time that kids spend in school is directly related to how they are doing.”
Elementary school children in Nova Scotia are in class for four hours a day. In Halifax, they received a half hour extra of in-class time.
It’s 144 teaching hours less than students in Ontario where their days are five-hours long. In Alberta, a student’s day is six-hours long.
“This is an issue that is really going to cause controversy,” said Bennett. “It means we have to make changes. She’s linking the teaching hours to our under-performance on national tests.”
Any changes would affect teachers’ contracts, which specify exactly how much instruction time teachers will do, as well as regulations which mandate the length of the class day.
“She’s facing quite a wall of opposition,” he said.
Many callers to Maritime Morning agreed with the idea of a longer school day saying kids can handle more learning time while other parents said it would help reduce the amount of time and money spent on child-care services.
