Do You Believe School Holidays Last Too Long?

[Luba]

Students have WAY more holidays than they ever have had before! It seems they have Pro-D days, longer Spring Breaks, etc.

Do you think it is harming their education? Do you think it's harder for parents because they have to take time off from work or find a babysitter? Or..do you agree with the decisions for all the Day's Off?

[TKDLady]

I don't agree with all the time off but until our legislators figure out that school should be the number one priority and stop cutting costs for education than I guess that is what we get. Less motivated and less educated children to run our country in the next generation. Very scary thought.

[Scott]

Well, difficult to say.

Parents need to spend some extended period of time with their kids, but lots of parents work. If the kids end up sitting at home babysitting each other, it defeats the purpose.

Either one or both of the following need to be available:

1. Parents need MORE time off with the kids. Standard vacation days in the USA are a grand total of 10 days. This is much to little time compared with the 60+ days that the kids are not in school.

2. The kids need less time off.

It would seem that a compromise could be made: Kids get 30 days off, Parents get 30 days (6 weeks). To make employers happy, parents would only receive half pay during vacations, making the real cost only 5 extra days pay. To sweeten the deal for employers, they would not be required to pay SS or Medicare on ANY paid vacation days.

[Meanon]

I have 6 weeks paid leave, plus 8 bank (public) holidays. The kids are off for 12 weeks a year so I also take an extra 4 weeks unpaid leave per year. they average my pay so I don't notice it so much.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Meanon

I have 6 weeks paid leave, plus 8 bank (public) holidays. The kids are off for 12 weeks a year so I also take an extra 4 weeks unpaid leave per year. they average my pay so I don't notice it so much.

See: This is what I'm talking about, however most US employers would frown on holding a job for an employee simply because they didn't want to work for a month, regardless of theirn noble intent.

[Meanon]

Whether employers do this depends in part on how important the emlpoyer feels it is to retain it's skilled, female workforce and how creative they are prepared to be. My employer uses it's terms and conditions to retain staff like me who could earn a higher wage elsewhere, but at a cost to the family or without the job security that they have now. In other words, it makes sound business sense to them. When I joined we had 3 months paid maternity leave, by the time I had my second child they increased this to 6 months, now it is 12 months. 75% of the work force are female. I'd have left my job 3 years ago if it hadn't been for the flexible working patterns. It does cause some difficulties but we work it out, I have an excellent deputy and my team size is larger because of my working pattern. We've recently recruited for "reverse term time" workers from local universities to help cover in offices which are light in the holidays and they do turn requests down that they can't support for business reasons.

[Vautrin]

Originally Posted by Scott

See: This is what I'm talking about, however most US employers would frown on holding a job for an employee simply because they didn't want to work for a month, regardless of theirn noble intent.

They also pay for it if they don't. They just don't realise that. Higher staff turnover means more time has to be spent on training new staff (which costs $), not to mention the loss of experience, and thus of productivity. Which is perhaps not a problem at a cash registry / check-out, but is a big issue with highly trained staff.

Not to mention the cost for all problems and new social needs associated with it (overstressed workers tend to be less productive).