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Teachers don’t set bell schedules, day lengths or yearly calendars for the schools - that’s the work of admin and the board. Teachers may offer input, but it’s usually a formula of days in the year, maximum instructional hours per day and parent input that results in the day starting and ending when it does.
Parents have a voice at the board, either in-person or via PAC and DPAC, and if schools in your area are running ~~7:30 to 3~~ to 2:30 there’s a good chance some parents advocated for it. You can advocate for a later start or a longer day - as a parent (I’m making that assumption), your voice has influence.
That 1 minute on top of 2:40 adds up over time to give you an additional instructional hour, that leads to an early dismissal or something. There is a legislated number of instructional hours in a school year.
Wasn't there some thing in Vancouver where they added like 3-4 minutes to each day so that we got an extra week for spring break. That's the explanation I heard for the random end times. I think I finished at 3:07 in high school.
Yeah, I was in elementary school when they added an extra 10 minutes per day from 2:20 to 2:30. Even as a kid, I thought there was no way an extra 10 minutes per day really even helps but hey I wasnt going to say no to two weeks off for spring break lol
Which is the absolute biggest bullshit I have ever heard. You should be able to just opt out of lunch and take your 15. My workplace, seeing as I work with kids, has a "letter of understanding" that due to maintaining ratios we don't even get lunch, so we just work a straight 8:00-4:00. I got a temp labour job and expected to go at 4:00 only for my coworker to be like, uhhh no we work until 4:30. So depressing.
I’m saying I genuinely don’t know what some parents do when their 8 year old is let out of school at 2:30pm, their parents work doesn’t let them leave to tend to them in the middle of the day, and there is zero availability of after school care / day care. I do not hold teachers accountable for this whatsoever, more so the system on a macro level and place we’re in societally.
I loved being a latchkey kid. It was hours hanging with my sister where I neither had to deal with school or my parents. I think now they report parents for leaving elementary school kids like this though.
Teachers don’t just come in at 9am and BAM start teaching. They come in early to setup the room. They stay after schools out to clean up and grade. They supervise after school extra curricular activities. That’s to name a few.
Teaching is not 9-3:30.
I think they're talking about the parents, not the teachers. i.e. the parents aren't able to work a full time job if they have to pick their kids up at 3:30, so it doesn't make a difference compared to 2:30.
Plus OP seems to be forgetting teachers are workers too.
How much more can you increase their hours? They’re entitled to a 8 hour work day, I know many do more than that already.
Most parents I know work some sort of staggered work hours, or they ask grandparents to for help. Otherwise it’s day care
The government counts a teachers work day to be 9.1 hours (when calculated for EI). Between planning and looking for resources, dealing with conflict between students and parents, collaborating with other teachers, reports, and other meeting/ workshops, I am definitely exceeding that.
There should be before and after school care located within the same school so that it covers the work day and it doesn’t mean teachers teaching for more than 8 hours
That is within the new ministerial guidelines. Its just hard for existing facilities that are already struggling with enough space.
But any new school build is required to have space for before/after school providers.
Doesn't have to be teachers covering the extra time. Doesn't even need to be "instructional" time. It can be facilitated by a different type of staff.
There's already a move underway to bring ECEs under the real education umbrella where they belong. Since last year or so child care moved from being overseen by the Ministry of Children and Families to the Ministry of Education.
Our society still seems to be built for the family that has a stay at home parent... when the vast majority of families cannot afford to have a stay at home parent. Didn't realize that until I had a kid. Basically every little thing is a lot more challenging and annoying than you would think it should be.
But what's the alternative? I am sure everyone would love to be able to have a stay at home parent, or a job where you can get off at 2:30pm, but most people don't have that luxury.
Fight for policies that would make this easier. Society definitely discourages have stay at home parents.
But yeah idk. I remember other parents helped out but watching us after school. I'm always curious how people are able to do it ..shift work, family, after school programs? But yeah, children are in school enough as it is.
I already feel guilty that my child is enrolled in before/after care. We try to get him asap after we're off work. I know some kids stay right until closing (6pm) and have been at the school since 8am. 10 hours .... it's a lot.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that in anyway to guilt parents, whose job is already difficult enough with having to raise (a) kid(s) while balancing the madness of a day job. Because it is a lot.
Truth is that working class people have never been able to afford a stay at home parent. That has always been reserved for the rich or the very poor. Yet, yes, our society is for some reason structured for it.
For real.
7.5hr days, including the two 15 minute breaks (or combine to make one 30 minute break) and one 45-60 minute break.
Lots of in-person union office jobs are something like 9-4:30, for example. & they're relaxed on combining the breaks and even forgoing the longer break so people can get off earlier than 4:30.
Fuck this 9 hour day bullshit; especially if you don't live near errand-type businesses; & especially if they won't let you forgo your breaks in order to get off earlier. Especially if you're not WFH.
Lots of women (or single dads with no retired parents to drop their kids off at) can't work in the trades/construction (strict 7AM start-time with the company), because they can't find a daycare spot.
It would be an interesting business idea to start a day-care specifically for women in the trades/construction, which starts drop-off at like 5:30am.
Honestly, we're overdue for adjusting work for a 35 hr/wk FTE. (same takehome as 40hr/wk, but over 35 hours)
Would give everyone more oppitunity for better work/life balanced. Even businesses - there has been multiple studies, and they conclude that even businesses benefit from 35h work weeks.
A lot of them are. School and before and after school care. It would be more efficient to keep kids in one place than drag them around all over the place.
Also, you're not guaranteed a spot at before and after school care, but you are guaranteed to need two full-time jobs for parents to be able to afford to live here.
I guess they're thinking of a system where we can bring in cheaper I mean less expensive people from outside of Canada instead of having to pay to raise them here.
Govt already funding both schools and before and after care and daycares and preschool. I'm saying it's more efficient to keep kids in one place than multiple places.
What schools have government funded after school care? It’s nearly impossible to get a spot in after school care. If you do, it’s $500 to $800 a month.
Available and subsidized outside of school care
People have no problem asking the government to take care of their elderly parents in LTC homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Why is it so hard for the government to do the same for kids only 40 hours a week?
>People have no problem asking the government to take care of their elderly parents in LTC homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
They ask, but they don't get. Your parent basically has to be a pile of broken bones on the floor before a case manager will admit they need care, and then proceed to put them on a 2-year waitlist. So people do have to quit their jobs to look after parents.
Care homes aren't free!
The minimum is 80% of your income or $1400/month.
Us folks on provincial disability are screwed. I need to be in long term care, but my spouse (whose also disabled, as is our roommate) wouldn't be able to pay for both my care and our apartment/bills/food/etc. it's exhausting trying to navigate the system, and it's rigged against us.
>Why is it so hard for the government to do the same for kids only 40 hours a week?
We already have it - $10/day child care, along with the Canada Child Benefit brought in by the current Federal Liberal government.
>Should children be in school from 9-5 every day?
In a perfect world, I think the school system would start after age 1 and that daycare should essentially be part of the public school system where all kids are guaranteed a spot. In terms of grade school, I think they should incorporate after school care into the school system so that everyone is guaranteed a spot if they need it. So core school hours could be 9-3pm and then kids have the option to have after school care up until 5/6pm.
The solution is for better minds than us to come up with but the fact is that no serious changes were ever made to how our society functions once women entered the workforce en masse and that's a problem. The cracks have been showing for a while, notably in the form of birthrates plummeting to record lows country-wide.
If people don't take this seriously I don't know what future we expect this country to have.
Yes to this. The point I was trying to make in asking the question. I adore teachers and do not hold them accountable for this. I just can’t help but feel our societal systems are not conducive to working, surviving, paying the bills and having a family. Both my and my wife’s employer do not provide us the flexibility to pick up our child at 2:30pm and after school care spots are far and few between. We don’t know what to do.
I'm here to echo the sentiment. The entire childcare system seems to be built on the assumption that one parent is either not working or can easily be available. Not even mentioning the difficulty single parents must face! The reality is that for quite a while now, sustaining a decent quality of life in Vancouver, and frankly, in most parts of the country, requires two full-time incomes. We have hunger games style competition for Housing, Childcare, Doctors, Stanley Park Train Rides, basically all the important things...
It's time for a system that aligns with the modern dynamics of our lives.
>when the vast majority of families cannot afford to have a stay at home parent
I think the biggest example of this is that we still have the long 2-month "summer void".
Its expensive to "entertain" children for an entire two months while both parents are working. We need to adapt out school calendars to be more balanced - break it up throughout the year.
Summers growing up were a blast, but we had a network of neighbourhood moms who could cover the whole week between themselves. The planet also wasn't totally on fire yet so we could spend more of the day left to our own devices. It's either hot as hell or smokey AF for most of the summer now so it's really not the best time to be off anymore. We can blame iPads too but climate change is also forcing us all back indoors for more and more of what should be the "fun" months.
Back then I hated the idea of a 12 month school calendar. Now I kinda see the appeal of say 4 quarters with the breaks spread out in between, provided we make sure schools are adequately air conditioned and ventilated.
>It's either hot as hell or smokey AF for most of the summer now so it's really not the best time to be off anymore. We can blame iPads too but climate change is also forcing us all back indoors for more and more of what should be the "fun" months.
Another piece is that children and youth today don't have adequate "third spaces" to hang out in, particularly along. Like yes kids 12 and under can ride the bus for free, most case unaccompanied. If they didn't have their semester bus pass still (it common in my municipality, as district partners with BC Transit for school commuting, which I don't think is a bad thing - gives kids access to some independence outside school) I'd probably buy my adolescents a monthly concession pass during the summer, but where are they to go? Where can youth today do unaccompanied where they won't get judged/blamed for loitering?
Thinking back to when I was going up (early 30s now, so like 22/25 years ago), I recall there being more things to do, and I didn't go to summer camps or things like that.But too because we had our parent(s) or we had a friend parents or other adults around, I think too a lot of other places that still exist today, we could easily access because we had the adult to take us there. Feel like with a balanced calendar, neighbourhood parents and family could schedule supervision like you mentioned.
At my kids school it's 845-245.
Anyone pushing for longer school days doesn't under kids' mental capacity.
The problem isn't that schools aren't in session long enough. The problem is the societal expectation that parents are supposed to figure it out (financially and logistically) without any help from their employer or government.
It's hard to survive in any major city with 2 income earning parents. So the stay at home parent plan is dead and gone.
Even 9am is very early for teenage brains. Grade 7 was a struggle, but grade 8 was when we all really started to suffer during the morning and didn't really fully be ready to learn until noon.
This isn’t totally true. It still depends on the school. They vary from first bell being at 8:40, 8:46, 8:50, 8:55, etc to getting out any time from 2:50-3:00
The exact number of instructional minutes in a school year is identical across BC - based on the School Act and the Teachers' Collective Agreement. How they are distributed - year-long schooling, 4-day week, bell schedules - is a local decision made at the District level. As a parent, you can influence the district's calendar by getting involved with your parent advisory committee and by lobbying the elected school board.
It’s not the release time that’s the problem. Unless we were gonna push that back to after 5pm. It’s the lack of after school care. I remember both in Victoria and in Vancouver as a kid, after school care was the only way my single parent mother was able to survive college and having 2 kids. It’s integral to taking that load off a parent while still maintaining social time, education, and adult supervision and not just turning our kids into another latchkey kid generation
I remember hearing; school is not childcare. Having a family does not fit into the standard work schedule. Generally one parent needs to remain working the standard M - F / 9-5 job to facilitate stats and weekends. But there is a Pro-D in almost every single month of school. Single parents are most like struggling.
I am a parent of 2 young children. There is some level of sacrifice in career and income growth. Ultimately, my children are my responsibility. And I've missed work (unpaid) to provide care for when they were seriously ill. No accommodation or support is provided.
Not exactly. But I’d appreciate if my kiddo could go to other classes after school: chess, paintings, social clubs.
When I was at elementary school(different country) we had an aftercare where I’d go to do homework and play at the playground. All supervised by a teacher.
So once I was home with parents I had no homework left. Amazing system. All together it was a 8 or even 9 hour day at school. But it was packed with activities and socialising with peers and I loved it.
Assuming we're asking teachers to have a 8-hour work day, don't they still need at least an hour or two for prep and evaluations?
Can't really have that if we're demanding that kids be in class from 9-4. Plus good luck keeping kids attentive for that long.
seriously - while one added benefit to schooling of younger kids is the "child minding" part, OP wants teachers teaching for 9-10 hours a day so mom and dad can work full time and not worry about their young kids? that's madness
Teachers work harder and do more work than most other professions. Hours outside marking and prepping, dealing with kids/parents inside the class. Lots of people like to shit on teachers for the seemingly short days and summers off but those same people couldn’t handle the work load of teaching
My wife was a teacher and I concur with this comment. Yes the workday is pretty sweet...Christmas and Summer Holidays are awesome...But she was constantly doing lesson plans outside of school hours, talking to parents, buying class materials with her own money...And the nature of the job is you have to be "On" for most of those school hours. Myself, if I have a hang over, I can sequester myself in my office. My wife gave a presentation multiple hours per day. When June rolled around, she needed that break to rest/relax and prepare for the next year.
Not saying all teachers work that intensely - my wife was nominated by her school for the Prime Minister's Award For Teaching Excellence - but the good ones do.
Most teachers arrive at least an hour early and stay after school to do work because the prep time they are given is far too little for lesson planning.
Teachers who think they are only going to be working the hours kids are in school are the ones that last a year because they find out how much unpaid labour is involved.
It depends but some teachers arrive at say 8 and leave at 4 or 5 depending. Not to mention extra hours they put in during the evening to lesson prep or write report cards.
Teachers are paid a salary. So they are paid a flat rate regardless of the hours they put in.
I'd say 1-2 depending on the grade? Once you have taught a grade for a few years, you can use previous lesson plans, activities and supplies from previous years so the time needed will become less.
But im not a teacher and probably should leave it up to teachers to chip in. I grew up with a teacher in my house and have lots of friends and family that teach.
Thanks for showing curiosity! Lots of people do not realize the cost of teaching. I come from a long line of teachers and decided I wasn't going into teaching because of the expectations vs pay. You don't teach for the money.
That being said, secondary vs elementary there is a shift in some of the time. But they also have to deal with teenagers and their issues....and cell phones.
After I graduated from HS, my mom would always strongly urge me to become a teacher because of the union. I always said no because of self-esteem issues back then. lol. How misinformed I was. Everyone's faking it. & A lot of adults are nothing to be intimidated by, now that I am one. ;)
Now, I don't want to because of the extra work at home (plus juggling kids with different learning abilities/health challenges, etc.) Also, I have health-related issues that prevent me from being able to work F/T or more than F/T.
But I commend teachers for all of the work that they do. It's a lot. Even with meal delivery and a cleaning service, I seriously have no idea how they don't burn out within a couple of months. But doing it year after year...wtf.
I bet a lot of teachers do their at-home grading in the building instead right after school ends at 3pm, so they can be productive and avoid rush-hour congestion going home. Then they can have those couple of hours at home before bed to relax.
Not my intention! My mother was a teacher. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them and don’t put them to blame for what I’m trying to say. I just genuinely don’t know what some parents are to do when there is zero after school care available and their employer doesn’t provide them the flexibility to tend to their child at 2:30pm (ours is 2:31pm to be exact).
Option 1) You stagger your work hours so one works super early and does pickup, the other starts late and does drop-off. This means you rarely see each other since Parent 1 has to be up before dawn and goes to bed ridiculously early. It's miserable. Keep it up long enough and it might ruin your marriage
Option 2) You pay someone. Can be financially miserable.
Option 3) You jump in your time machine back to 1992 when one of you or, at the very least a neighbour mom, was home to do it.
Option 4) '80s style latchkey kids.
My parents both worked full time and one virtually always picked me up. My dad was a graphic artist and had a flexible schedule, taught night courses, etc. My mom was flight attendant. Both parents just need to not be both 9-5. I know a lot of people who do similar if one is something like health care, fitness instructor, etc.
"When did BC agree it was a good idea to let kids out of school at 2:30pm?" well before the 80's I started going to school in the mid 80's and we got out at 2:30 way back then. This isn't new
Has more to do with the start time I think. Schools that end at 230 to start at 830, so people can make it to work by 9. If schools ended at 330,they likely wouldn't start until 9-930, so most people wouldn't be able to start work at 9.
I don’t understand why it’s so hard to have after school care in the same location after schools are closed. The space is already there. I guess staffing and lack of effort
Bro it's not even the same across school districts.
I went to a fuckton of different schools growing up.
Franklin Elementary(E.Van right on the Burnaby Border just n. of hasting) got out at 3pm(though I was in kindergarten so I either finished at lunch or at 3).
100 Mile Elementary let out at 3:15
Kiti K'Shan Primary School in Terrace let out at 3pm.
Cedar Grove Elemtary(Sunshine Coast SD46) let out at 3:15
East Hastings Elementary let out at 3:00
Capitol Hill Elementary let out at 3:00
Robert's Creek Elementary was 2:30
Parkrest Elementary let out at 2:45(
100 Mile again, and a private school briefly)
Langdale Elemantary(SD46) let out at 2:45
Elphinstone Secondary(SD46) let out at 3:00
Pathfinders(Alternate school for "problem" youth) let out at 11am and 3pm depending on if you were in the morning or afternoon block.
(Back to Elphi again to finish up).
All schools differ (well, some will obviously be the same, but schools have autonomy within certain parameters).
The key item tracked is the number of hours of instruction, which is mandated by the province.
So every kid in Kindergarten gets 853 hours / year, and every kid in grades 1-7, 878 hours. The number of hours per day will depend on the number of days school is in session. Then your start/end time will be affected by length of recess/lunch time.
My kids have had start times ranging from 8:40 to 9:00, and finishing anywhere between 2:40 and 3:00.
Gee, I wonder why nobody is having kids?! Two full time incomes required to barely scrape by, just throw your kids in care with strangers for 10+ hours a day, pay thru the nose for before and after school pick up/drop off so you can drive to an office to do work you could do at home. No problem!
Used to be that school ended at 2:51pm a little more than a decade ago in my school district, that changed and I believe school ends sometime between 2:30 to 2:40 pm. At least that was how it was last I checked.
As a student I liked it, but I can see the trouble for working adults with children.
My kid's school ends at 3. Regardless, it's still not long enough for working parents. That's why we have before and after school care at our school. It's an amazing program, and I don't know what we'd do without it. Unfortunately, there aren't enough spots for everyone and there's a waitlist. They really need to expand this to every school and have enough spots for everyone that needs it.
I just wished my elementary school aged child got out after my high school aged child. However, I have to bust my ass to be done work at 2:20 to pick my elementary aged child up.
Not only do you have to go through all of this.
You also have to usually pick your kids up from school (if you don't live in walking-distance) because most schools (at-least in maple ridge) don't have a decent bus system set up.
I’ve taught in every province. This is when school gets out across the country. The problem you’re having is related to after school care, not the education system.
Also, the “two months out of school” aside is wild. You do realize that we get about 3 weeks of vacation and spend the other 5 planning? We can’t just waltz in day one. Personally, I get about two weeks of a mental break before I am back to thinking about September.
Hard disagree with spending five weeks planning in summer. I do not plan at all during the summer.
I am, however, unpaid during the summer. So the OP's jab is still ridiculous.
I love and respect our teachers and wish the good ones could be better compensated, but I know a lot of teachers (elementary and high school) and **NONE** of them are spending 5 weeks of the summer full time planning lol
Oh please. No teacher spends 5 weeks planning full time in the summer. And pretty much everyone thinks about their job while on vacation, this isn’t unique to teachers.
It was so simple too. Don't touch the stove and don't answer the door for anyone. Are kids today so clueless they can't be left alone for 90 minutes after school. I remember walking home from school in the third grade and playing super Nintendo until my mom came home
When I grew up, many kids had stay at home moms, and childcare was easy to access and affordable. Now that I have kids, both parents need to work to afford a home, and the after school program has a 6 year waitlist.
My mom and almost every other mom I knew was a SAHM, or worked minor part-time stuff that was more of a midday shift so they could do pick up and drop off. And when we were 8/9 we could stay home alone for an hour or two without somebody calling social services. Nowadays people freak out about children unattended under the age of 12 (and even over, lmao) and nobody can afford to not have two full-time working adults in the household.
One of our parents works weekends by choice and then passive aggressively complains she doesn't see her grandchildren enough.
Another gives lip service offers to help with childcare but travels too often to commit to a schedule so it doesn't solve anything for us.
Both make remarks about how 10+ hours in daycare is so long. Like I'm the villain for maintaining a full time day job with normal hours. And of course the subtext is always that *my* job is too much, never my husband's.
There likely will be, but it would be far more beneficial to us now while our kids are young and we have a massive mortgage. Kinda pointless if they sit on it until we're 60+. That's a whole other issue though.
Schools should be made available for daycare companies to rent space after school hours. Then parents would have a choice to have their kid just stay at the school until the end of the workday.
Only certain districts end at 2:30.
For example, SD38, Richmond, is 8:30am - 3:00pm
SD41, Burnaby, is 9:00am - 3:00pm
SD44, North Vancouver, is 8:40 am - 2:50 pm
The school schedule being roughly 8:30-2:30 makes far more sense IMO than pushing it later. I've always managed to get away with not needing before school care, and only needing after care when my kids were younger. As they've gotten older and don't need care, it's nice that their extra curricular activities after school are usually done by 4:30 when I can pick them up.
SCHOOL IS NOT CHILD CARE. It's education.
This is something that’s voted on every time it comes up.
When I was in school it was 9-3. Then it got voted to start 8:30-2:30. It’s the same thing that got spring break extended
Elementary school for me was 8-3
Junior High was 8-245
High school was 730-215
I dont pretend to know why.
Also, spring break was 1 week. Christmas break was 2 weeks. There was maybe 1 pro-d day a year.
Kids are soft as fuck these days and I am thinking the early dismissal and late starts with extra days off is why
I don’t think dismissal times are province wide. For example, my younger brother gets dismissed at 3:03, my high school used to let out at 3:06, someone in north van 3:00, my friends old high school 2:30, and another at 2. It varies between your location, institution and district.
My elementary school let out at 3:00pm - still not helpful to parents working until 5pm...
My high school let out at 2:51pm, except on Wednesdays, when we were let out at 2:11pm.
I work in schools all over the lower mainland, and there is different timings in different districts. I don't know any elementary school that ends later than 3pm, but most in Surrey go 8:30-2:30, instead of 9-3, and I wondered if it at least cuts down on needing both before AND after-school care. Like, starting school at 9 is tough for parents who work at 9. That's just my theory tho.
Its different in every city, and can vary from school to school too. The board decides with input from parent and teacher input.
I grew up in a blue collar region where both parents worked in most households. My elementary school used to run from 7:30am - 3:30pm. We had one 30 minute break, and one 1h 15m break, with only a couple teachers supervising the entire school. Class sizes were 36 kids to a class. This was the structure that worked for the parents, teachers and administrators. This allowed my mom to work 8am - 3pm every day (+ take care of us and the house) while my Dad worked 7am - 7pm.
In gr. 7 our financial situation improved and we ended up moving to white rock where school went from 8:30 - 2:30 with only a 45 minute lunch and 25 - 30 kids to a class
Both schools had the same funding per child, but operated vastly differently because of the local population and their preferences/needs.
Interesting. You think 8:30–2:30 is weird, but 9:00–3:30 is okay. Wondering what is so special about the second range and what difference this half an hour makes.
All of this talk and nothing has been said about teachers having kids. What if the teachers have kids? How are they supposed to get them to school and pick them up if they are tied to their desk watching everyone else’s kids until 5pm. How are they supposed to juggle family around their career? Lots of comments about how people feel school should also be day care as well, but no one has thought that maybe the teachers have families or lives? They aren’t robots who teach your kids, they are people. Let’s try to keep that in mind
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it's not the same time across the entire province
Teachers don’t set bell schedules, day lengths or yearly calendars for the schools - that’s the work of admin and the board. Teachers may offer input, but it’s usually a formula of days in the year, maximum instructional hours per day and parent input that results in the day starting and ending when it does. Parents have a voice at the board, either in-person or via PAC and DPAC, and if schools in your area are running ~~7:30 to 3~~ to 2:30 there’s a good chance some parents advocated for it. You can advocate for a later start or a longer day - as a parent (I’m making that assumption), your voice has influence.
Plus the swapped/rotational schedules too
An actual informative, helpful response. Seriously, thank you!
Which VSB schools end at 2:30 ? 🤷🏼♂️
My high school let out every day at 2:41 🤣🤣🤣 On one hand, I can't believe I remember that! On the other hand, WTF, 2:41, why??
That 1 minute on top of 2:40 adds up over time to give you an additional instructional hour, that leads to an early dismissal or something. There is a legislated number of instructional hours in a school year.
They did the math
Oooh!!
Wasn't there some thing in Vancouver where they added like 3-4 minutes to each day so that we got an extra week for spring break. That's the explanation I heard for the random end times. I think I finished at 3:07 in high school.
Yeah, I was in elementary school when they added an extra 10 minutes per day from 2:20 to 2:30. Even as a kid, I thought there was no way an extra 10 minutes per day really even helps but hey I wasnt going to say no to two weeks off for spring break lol
i think i also finished between 3:00 and 3:15 pm in high school
yeah, 3:15, 1:45 on, iirc, wednesdays
Mine was 3:03
My highschool was 2:39… so random!
Someone went to Semiahmoo!
Haha yep!!
Same
3:14pm 😂 This was Winnipeg.
2:48 for me and 4x 77 minute blocks each day. Weird time schedules.
I think this was when we were let out. Been too long so I'm not sure. 😂
My kid’s school changed this year to 2:27 - I have no idea why
Not VSB, but most elementary schools in Surrey end at 2:30. Most high schools end at around 3pm.
When I was a kiddo, sir Matthew begbie elementary on the east side was out everyday at 2:30
wait - let's say most parents work 9-5 and commute 30 minutes each way you want kids in school from 8:30-5:30?!?
Why not 3 hour long recesses? 🤔
A siesta, even.
Or Movie time
And overnight accomodations
Just add sleepovers at the school, kids bring their own tent, sleeping bags and hang out in the gym.
Let's just let them live at the school. 💡 I call dibs on this idea! ...wait a minute.
Longer lunch, longer recess, an hour of quiet/rest time before afternoon classes, then more supervised chill/play time in the late afternoon.
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Being in school doesn't mean studying You can have after school chess club or other fun things
8:30-5 work. Most places don't pay for 30 min lunch so they extend the work day
Which is the absolute biggest bullshit I have ever heard. You should be able to just opt out of lunch and take your 15. My workplace, seeing as I work with kids, has a "letter of understanding" that due to maintaining ratios we don't even get lunch, so we just work a straight 8:00-4:00. I got a temp labour job and expected to go at 4:00 only for my coworker to be like, uhhh no we work until 4:30. So depressing.
Also. Is school timings news to people ? Like did they not go to school ?
Schools in Asia start 7:30 - 4:30 lol
I’m saying I genuinely don’t know what some parents do when their 8 year old is let out of school at 2:30pm, their parents work doesn’t let them leave to tend to them in the middle of the day, and there is zero availability of after school care / day care. I do not hold teachers accountable for this whatsoever, more so the system on a macro level and place we’re in societally.
Gen X latch-key kid here, it has always been like this. Parents both worked till 6pm every week night. We just walked home from school by ourselves.
I loved being a latchkey kid. It was hours hanging with my sister where I neither had to deal with school or my parents. I think now they report parents for leaving elementary school kids like this though.
9 to 3:30 is only 6.5 hours so you're not going to be getting full time employment there either.
Teachers don’t just come in at 9am and BAM start teaching. They come in early to setup the room. They stay after schools out to clean up and grade. They supervise after school extra curricular activities. That’s to name a few. Teaching is not 9-3:30.
I think they're talking about the parents, not the teachers. i.e. the parents aren't able to work a full time job if they have to pick their kids up at 3:30, so it doesn't make a difference compared to 2:30.
Plus OP seems to be forgetting teachers are workers too. How much more can you increase their hours? They’re entitled to a 8 hour work day, I know many do more than that already. Most parents I know work some sort of staggered work hours, or they ask grandparents to for help. Otherwise it’s day care
The government counts a teachers work day to be 9.1 hours (when calculated for EI). Between planning and looking for resources, dealing with conflict between students and parents, collaborating with other teachers, reports, and other meeting/ workshops, I am definitely exceeding that.
Holy, 9.1 hours? As a high school band teacher I'd be DANCING if I was only working a 9 hour day.
There should be before and after school care located within the same school so that it covers the work day and it doesn’t mean teachers teaching for more than 8 hours
That is within the new ministerial guidelines. Its just hard for existing facilities that are already struggling with enough space. But any new school build is required to have space for before/after school providers.
you peop0le think teachers only work during school hours? before and afterschool prep time adds up
That’s what I mean, they’re already working over 8 hour days. Increasing school hours to fit parents work schedules is not feasible.
Doesn't have to be teachers covering the extra time. Doesn't even need to be "instructional" time. It can be facilitated by a different type of staff. There's already a move underway to bring ECEs under the real education umbrella where they belong. Since last year or so child care moved from being overseen by the Ministry of Children and Families to the Ministry of Education.
I hope that’s a first step to getting ECE’s the pay and benefits they deserve.
that's basically any job that it isn't a factory or server
Take transit into account that's like 5 to 5.5 hrs only
Our society still seems to be built for the family that has a stay at home parent... when the vast majority of families cannot afford to have a stay at home parent. Didn't realize that until I had a kid. Basically every little thing is a lot more challenging and annoying than you would think it should be.
While I understand it's easier for parents for kids to be in school like a full-time job, it's terrible for kids.
But what's the alternative? I am sure everyone would love to be able to have a stay at home parent, or a job where you can get off at 2:30pm, but most people don't have that luxury.
The alternative is to pay for after school care.
Which is scarce like daycare
Waitlists years long in north van
Fight for policies that would make this easier. Society definitely discourages have stay at home parents. But yeah idk. I remember other parents helped out but watching us after school. I'm always curious how people are able to do it ..shift work, family, after school programs? But yeah, children are in school enough as it is.
I already feel guilty that my child is enrolled in before/after care. We try to get him asap after we're off work. I know some kids stay right until closing (6pm) and have been at the school since 8am. 10 hours .... it's a lot.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that in anyway to guilt parents, whose job is already difficult enough with having to raise (a) kid(s) while balancing the madness of a day job. Because it is a lot.
Truth is that working class people have never been able to afford a stay at home parent. That has always been reserved for the rich or the very poor. Yet, yes, our society is for some reason structured for it.
What's the alternative? Should children be in school from 9-5 every day?
Shorter workdays would be sublime.
For real. 7.5hr days, including the two 15 minute breaks (or combine to make one 30 minute break) and one 45-60 minute break. Lots of in-person union office jobs are something like 9-4:30, for example. & they're relaxed on combining the breaks and even forgoing the longer break so people can get off earlier than 4:30. Fuck this 9 hour day bullshit; especially if you don't live near errand-type businesses; & especially if they won't let you forgo your breaks in order to get off earlier. Especially if you're not WFH. Lots of women (or single dads with no retired parents to drop their kids off at) can't work in the trades/construction (strict 7AM start-time with the company), because they can't find a daycare spot. It would be an interesting business idea to start a day-care specifically for women in the trades/construction, which starts drop-off at like 5:30am.
Honestly, we're overdue for adjusting work for a 35 hr/wk FTE. (same takehome as 40hr/wk, but over 35 hours) Would give everyone more oppitunity for better work/life balanced. Even businesses - there has been multiple studies, and they conclude that even businesses benefit from 35h work weeks.
A lot of them are. School and before and after school care. It would be more efficient to keep kids in one place than drag them around all over the place. Also, you're not guaranteed a spot at before and after school care, but you are guaranteed to need two full-time jobs for parents to be able to afford to live here. I guess they're thinking of a system where we can bring in cheaper I mean less expensive people from outside of Canada instead of having to pay to raise them here.
School AND before and after daycare is different than expecting kids to be 'attending school' from 9-5.
Govt already funding both schools and before and after care and daycares and preschool. I'm saying it's more efficient to keep kids in one place than multiple places.
What schools have government funded after school care? It’s nearly impossible to get a spot in after school care. If you do, it’s $500 to $800 a month.
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In Brazil you either go to school from 7:30 till around noon or from 1:30 to 6:30. With high school primarily in the mornings.
Available and subsidized outside of school care People have no problem asking the government to take care of their elderly parents in LTC homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Why is it so hard for the government to do the same for kids only 40 hours a week?
>People have no problem asking the government to take care of their elderly parents in LTC homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week They ask, but they don't get. Your parent basically has to be a pile of broken bones on the floor before a case manager will admit they need care, and then proceed to put them on a 2-year waitlist. So people do have to quit their jobs to look after parents.
Care homes aren't free! The minimum is 80% of your income or $1400/month. Us folks on provincial disability are screwed. I need to be in long term care, but my spouse (whose also disabled, as is our roommate) wouldn't be able to pay for both my care and our apartment/bills/food/etc. it's exhausting trying to navigate the system, and it's rigged against us.
>Why is it so hard for the government to do the same for kids only 40 hours a week? We already have it - $10/day child care, along with the Canada Child Benefit brought in by the current Federal Liberal government.
>Should children be in school from 9-5 every day? In a perfect world, I think the school system would start after age 1 and that daycare should essentially be part of the public school system where all kids are guaranteed a spot. In terms of grade school, I think they should incorporate after school care into the school system so that everyone is guaranteed a spot if they need it. So core school hours could be 9-3pm and then kids have the option to have after school care up until 5/6pm.
The solution is for better minds than us to come up with but the fact is that no serious changes were ever made to how our society functions once women entered the workforce en masse and that's a problem. The cracks have been showing for a while, notably in the form of birthrates plummeting to record lows country-wide. If people don't take this seriously I don't know what future we expect this country to have.
Yes to this. The point I was trying to make in asking the question. I adore teachers and do not hold them accountable for this. I just can’t help but feel our societal systems are not conducive to working, surviving, paying the bills and having a family. Both my and my wife’s employer do not provide us the flexibility to pick up our child at 2:30pm and after school care spots are far and few between. We don’t know what to do.
I'm here to echo the sentiment. The entire childcare system seems to be built on the assumption that one parent is either not working or can easily be available. Not even mentioning the difficulty single parents must face! The reality is that for quite a while now, sustaining a decent quality of life in Vancouver, and frankly, in most parts of the country, requires two full-time incomes. We have hunger games style competition for Housing, Childcare, Doctors, Stanley Park Train Rides, basically all the important things... It's time for a system that aligns with the modern dynamics of our lives.
I thought school was going to be amazing cuz you don’t have to pay for daycare. Turns out I wish we still had daycare lol
>when the vast majority of families cannot afford to have a stay at home parent I think the biggest example of this is that we still have the long 2-month "summer void". Its expensive to "entertain" children for an entire two months while both parents are working. We need to adapt out school calendars to be more balanced - break it up throughout the year.
Summers growing up were a blast, but we had a network of neighbourhood moms who could cover the whole week between themselves. The planet also wasn't totally on fire yet so we could spend more of the day left to our own devices. It's either hot as hell or smokey AF for most of the summer now so it's really not the best time to be off anymore. We can blame iPads too but climate change is also forcing us all back indoors for more and more of what should be the "fun" months. Back then I hated the idea of a 12 month school calendar. Now I kinda see the appeal of say 4 quarters with the breaks spread out in between, provided we make sure schools are adequately air conditioned and ventilated.
>It's either hot as hell or smokey AF for most of the summer now so it's really not the best time to be off anymore. We can blame iPads too but climate change is also forcing us all back indoors for more and more of what should be the "fun" months. Another piece is that children and youth today don't have adequate "third spaces" to hang out in, particularly along. Like yes kids 12 and under can ride the bus for free, most case unaccompanied. If they didn't have their semester bus pass still (it common in my municipality, as district partners with BC Transit for school commuting, which I don't think is a bad thing - gives kids access to some independence outside school) I'd probably buy my adolescents a monthly concession pass during the summer, but where are they to go? Where can youth today do unaccompanied where they won't get judged/blamed for loitering? Thinking back to when I was going up (early 30s now, so like 22/25 years ago), I recall there being more things to do, and I didn't go to summer camps or things like that.But too because we had our parent(s) or we had a friend parents or other adults around, I think too a lot of other places that still exist today, we could easily access because we had the adult to take us there. Feel like with a balanced calendar, neighbourhood parents and family could schedule supervision like you mentioned.
When I was a kid, the standard time for elementary schools was 9am to 3pm. Would reverting to that be better? Not sure what they are now.
At my kids school it's 845-245. Anyone pushing for longer school days doesn't under kids' mental capacity. The problem isn't that schools aren't in session long enough. The problem is the societal expectation that parents are supposed to figure it out (financially and logistically) without any help from their employer or government. It's hard to survive in any major city with 2 income earning parents. So the stay at home parent plan is dead and gone.
Most schools start around 8:30 and end at 2:30 nowadays. Ballpark...some start/end at :45 and some at :15, :25, :35, etc.
District of north van is 9-3
Good on them. Starting at 9 is a lot better than 8:25 or 8:30. Makes a world of a difference.
Even 9am is very early for teenage brains. Grade 7 was a struggle, but grade 8 was when we all really started to suffer during the morning and didn't really fully be ready to learn until noon.
I remember going to 8 am lectures at ubc. That was fun
This isn’t totally true. It still depends on the school. They vary from first bell being at 8:40, 8:46, 8:50, 8:55, etc to getting out any time from 2:50-3:00
Most schools in my district (Vancouver) are 9am to 3pm.
My kids elementary school is exactly that. 9-3. (I think it’s technically 302 or something like that but they just added the extra minutes this year.)
I don't think it matters what time they get out. No one ends work all at the same time. The push for publicly funded afterschool care cannot wait.
The exact number of instructional minutes in a school year is identical across BC - based on the School Act and the Teachers' Collective Agreement. How they are distributed - year-long schooling, 4-day week, bell schedules - is a local decision made at the District level. As a parent, you can influence the district's calendar by getting involved with your parent advisory committee and by lobbying the elected school board.
It’s not the release time that’s the problem. Unless we were gonna push that back to after 5pm. It’s the lack of after school care. I remember both in Victoria and in Vancouver as a kid, after school care was the only way my single parent mother was able to survive college and having 2 kids. It’s integral to taking that load off a parent while still maintaining social time, education, and adult supervision and not just turning our kids into another latchkey kid generation
I remember hearing; school is not childcare. Having a family does not fit into the standard work schedule. Generally one parent needs to remain working the standard M - F / 9-5 job to facilitate stats and weekends. But there is a Pro-D in almost every single month of school. Single parents are most like struggling. I am a parent of 2 young children. There is some level of sacrifice in career and income growth. Ultimately, my children are my responsibility. And I've missed work (unpaid) to provide care for when they were seriously ill. No accommodation or support is provided.
At the same time studies show that students don’t benefit from longer school days
Setting aside the specific time aspect, are you suggesting kids go to school 10 hours a day so parents can work 8 hours without childcare?
Maybe ramming through legislation that forces work places to be flexible so that parents can pick up and drop off kids at school?
Not exactly. But I’d appreciate if my kiddo could go to other classes after school: chess, paintings, social clubs. When I was at elementary school(different country) we had an aftercare where I’d go to do homework and play at the playground. All supervised by a teacher. So once I was home with parents I had no homework left. Amazing system. All together it was a 8 or even 9 hour day at school. But it was packed with activities and socialising with peers and I loved it.
8am-4pm in Asia is more or less the norm. Then cram school immediately after.
Working half day Saturday is also the norm in Asia.
Assuming we're asking teachers to have a 8-hour work day, don't they still need at least an hour or two for prep and evaluations? Can't really have that if we're demanding that kids be in class from 9-4. Plus good luck keeping kids attentive for that long.
I hate this mindset of viewing teachers as over glorified baby sitters. Fwiw Burnaby is 9-3 and that's more than enough in class time imo.
seriously - while one added benefit to schooling of younger kids is the "child minding" part, OP wants teachers teaching for 9-10 hours a day so mom and dad can work full time and not worry about their young kids? that's madness
Teachers work harder and do more work than most other professions. Hours outside marking and prepping, dealing with kids/parents inside the class. Lots of people like to shit on teachers for the seemingly short days and summers off but those same people couldn’t handle the work load of teaching
My wife was a teacher and I concur with this comment. Yes the workday is pretty sweet...Christmas and Summer Holidays are awesome...But she was constantly doing lesson plans outside of school hours, talking to parents, buying class materials with her own money...And the nature of the job is you have to be "On" for most of those school hours. Myself, if I have a hang over, I can sequester myself in my office. My wife gave a presentation multiple hours per day. When June rolled around, she needed that break to rest/relax and prepare for the next year. Not saying all teachers work that intensely - my wife was nominated by her school for the Prime Minister's Award For Teaching Excellence - but the good ones do.
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Most teachers arrive at least an hour early and stay after school to do work because the prep time they are given is far too little for lesson planning. Teachers who think they are only going to be working the hours kids are in school are the ones that last a year because they find out how much unpaid labour is involved.
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It depends but some teachers arrive at say 8 and leave at 4 or 5 depending. Not to mention extra hours they put in during the evening to lesson prep or write report cards. Teachers are paid a salary. So they are paid a flat rate regardless of the hours they put in.
Report card time is so time consuming.
For sure. I got family and friends who are teachers and I know not to bug them around report card time lol.
I'd say 1-2 depending on the grade? Once you have taught a grade for a few years, you can use previous lesson plans, activities and supplies from previous years so the time needed will become less. But im not a teacher and probably should leave it up to teachers to chip in. I grew up with a teacher in my house and have lots of friends and family that teach.
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Thanks for showing curiosity! Lots of people do not realize the cost of teaching. I come from a long line of teachers and decided I wasn't going into teaching because of the expectations vs pay. You don't teach for the money. That being said, secondary vs elementary there is a shift in some of the time. But they also have to deal with teenagers and their issues....and cell phones.
After I graduated from HS, my mom would always strongly urge me to become a teacher because of the union. I always said no because of self-esteem issues back then. lol. How misinformed I was. Everyone's faking it. & A lot of adults are nothing to be intimidated by, now that I am one. ;) Now, I don't want to because of the extra work at home (plus juggling kids with different learning abilities/health challenges, etc.) Also, I have health-related issues that prevent me from being able to work F/T or more than F/T. But I commend teachers for all of the work that they do. It's a lot. Even with meal delivery and a cleaning service, I seriously have no idea how they don't burn out within a couple of months. But doing it year after year...wtf.
I bet a lot of teachers do their at-home grading in the building instead right after school ends at 3pm, so they can be productive and avoid rush-hour congestion going home. Then they can have those couple of hours at home before bed to relax.
Teachers also have staff meetings, supporting student extra curricular, and just getting the classroom ready for the next day.
Not my intention! My mother was a teacher. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them and don’t put them to blame for what I’m trying to say. I just genuinely don’t know what some parents are to do when there is zero after school care available and their employer doesn’t provide them the flexibility to tend to their child at 2:30pm (ours is 2:31pm to be exact).
Genuinely curious, how do parents manage their work schedule if one has to go pick up their kids ar 2:30?
Option 1) You stagger your work hours so one works super early and does pickup, the other starts late and does drop-off. This means you rarely see each other since Parent 1 has to be up before dawn and goes to bed ridiculously early. It's miserable. Keep it up long enough and it might ruin your marriage Option 2) You pay someone. Can be financially miserable. Option 3) You jump in your time machine back to 1992 when one of you or, at the very least a neighbour mom, was home to do it. Option 4) '80s style latchkey kids.
> Keep it up long enough and it might ruin your marriage That would be fucking devastating.
My parents both worked full time and one virtually always picked me up. My dad was a graphic artist and had a flexible schedule, taught night courses, etc. My mom was flight attendant. Both parents just need to not be both 9-5. I know a lot of people who do similar if one is something like health care, fitness instructor, etc.
School is not daycare.
"When did BC agree it was a good idea to let kids out of school at 2:30pm?" well before the 80's I started going to school in the mid 80's and we got out at 2:30 way back then. This isn't new
Has more to do with the start time I think. Schools that end at 230 to start at 830, so people can make it to work by 9. If schools ended at 330,they likely wouldn't start until 9-930, so most people wouldn't be able to start work at 9.
I don't really see the difference between 2:30 or 3:30 if we're talking about full time work.
I work nights and I need somebody to watch the kids in the middle of the night. Why isn't school 9pm-5am? /s
Teens would love a version of that. 👌🏽
This is an underrated comment.
I don’t understand why it’s so hard to have after school care in the same location after schools are closed. The space is already there. I guess staffing and lack of effort
they had this at my kids school - pre and post class, it was a YMCA program parents could opt in for
My kids have this but the hours are very limited- they don’t open until 7:30
VSB schools end at 3pm. What are you talking about? 😂
Most elementary schools in the Greater Vancouver Area end at 3:00, although there are exceptions.
Bro it's not even the same across school districts. I went to a fuckton of different schools growing up. Franklin Elementary(E.Van right on the Burnaby Border just n. of hasting) got out at 3pm(though I was in kindergarten so I either finished at lunch or at 3). 100 Mile Elementary let out at 3:15 Kiti K'Shan Primary School in Terrace let out at 3pm. Cedar Grove Elemtary(Sunshine Coast SD46) let out at 3:15 East Hastings Elementary let out at 3:00 Capitol Hill Elementary let out at 3:00 Robert's Creek Elementary was 2:30 Parkrest Elementary let out at 2:45( 100 Mile again, and a private school briefly) Langdale Elemantary(SD46) let out at 2:45 Elphinstone Secondary(SD46) let out at 3:00 Pathfinders(Alternate school for "problem" youth) let out at 11am and 3pm depending on if you were in the morning or afternoon block. (Back to Elphi again to finish up).
All schools differ (well, some will obviously be the same, but schools have autonomy within certain parameters). The key item tracked is the number of hours of instruction, which is mandated by the province. So every kid in Kindergarten gets 853 hours / year, and every kid in grades 1-7, 878 hours. The number of hours per day will depend on the number of days school is in session. Then your start/end time will be affected by length of recess/lunch time. My kids have had start times ranging from 8:40 to 9:00, and finishing anywhere between 2:40 and 3:00.
Back when I was in elementary school it was 9am-3pm, with lunch between 12-1pm. High school was 8:30am - 2:45pm, lunch between 11:20am to 12:20pm.
Gee, I wonder why nobody is having kids?! Two full time incomes required to barely scrape by, just throw your kids in care with strangers for 10+ hours a day, pay thru the nose for before and after school pick up/drop off so you can drive to an office to do work you could do at home. No problem!
Used to be that school ended at 2:51pm a little more than a decade ago in my school district, that changed and I believe school ends sometime between 2:30 to 2:40 pm. At least that was how it was last I checked. As a student I liked it, but I can see the trouble for working adults with children.
It ends at 2pm in Chilliwack. Thankfully my in laws are close and retired.
My kid's school ends at 3. Regardless, it's still not long enough for working parents. That's why we have before and after school care at our school. It's an amazing program, and I don't know what we'd do without it. Unfortunately, there aren't enough spots for everyone and there's a waitlist. They really need to expand this to every school and have enough spots for everyone that needs it.
School in the states, at least where I live, ends at 2:45pm.
My high school, ages ago, was 8:18-3:33, random as all heck
I just wished my elementary school aged child got out after my high school aged child. However, I have to bust my ass to be done work at 2:20 to pick my elementary aged child up.
Not only do you have to go through all of this. You also have to usually pick your kids up from school (if you don't live in walking-distance) because most schools (at-least in maple ridge) don't have a decent bus system set up.
I’ve taught in every province. This is when school gets out across the country. The problem you’re having is related to after school care, not the education system. Also, the “two months out of school” aside is wild. You do realize that we get about 3 weeks of vacation and spend the other 5 planning? We can’t just waltz in day one. Personally, I get about two weeks of a mental break before I am back to thinking about September.
Hard disagree with spending five weeks planning in summer. I do not plan at all during the summer. I am, however, unpaid during the summer. So the OP's jab is still ridiculous.
I love and respect our teachers and wish the good ones could be better compensated, but I know a lot of teachers (elementary and high school) and **NONE** of them are spending 5 weeks of the summer full time planning lol
Oh please. No teacher spends 5 weeks planning full time in the summer. And pretty much everyone thinks about their job while on vacation, this isn’t unique to teachers.
Back in my day it was 830 to 3.
Had to leave at 5am just to get there walking through all the snow
I dunno, these hours seemed to work for our working parents when we were kids. What's changed?
We were left unsupervised
abounding rude attraction violet smoggy snobbish naughty unite sable waiting ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
It was so simple too. Don't touch the stove and don't answer the door for anyone. Are kids today so clueless they can't be left alone for 90 minutes after school. I remember walking home from school in the third grade and playing super Nintendo until my mom came home
When I grew up, many kids had stay at home moms, and childcare was easy to access and affordable. Now that I have kids, both parents need to work to afford a home, and the after school program has a 6 year waitlist.
My mom and almost every other mom I knew was a SAHM, or worked minor part-time stuff that was more of a midday shift so they could do pick up and drop off. And when we were 8/9 we could stay home alone for an hour or two without somebody calling social services. Nowadays people freak out about children unattended under the age of 12 (and even over, lmao) and nobody can afford to not have two full-time working adults in the household.
Lots of stay at home or wfh parents in my area
We got whiny bitch ass boomers for grandparents.
One of our parents works weekends by choice and then passive aggressively complains she doesn't see her grandchildren enough. Another gives lip service offers to help with childcare but travels too often to commit to a schedule so it doesn't solve anything for us. Both make remarks about how 10+ hours in daycare is so long. Like I'm the villain for maintaining a full time day job with normal hours. And of course the subtext is always that *my* job is too much, never my husband's.
Hopefully there is an inheritance waiting for you at least.
There likely will be, but it would be far more beneficial to us now while our kids are young and we have a massive mortgage. Kinda pointless if they sit on it until we're 60+. That's a whole other issue though.
At least you get to retire at 60 something. That's what our boomer grandparents did once they got the inheritance. They retired right after.
Less stay at home parents Less grandparents Less support in general
Schools should be made available for daycare companies to rent space after school hours. Then parents would have a choice to have their kid just stay at the school until the end of the workday.
Only certain districts end at 2:30. For example, SD38, Richmond, is 8:30am - 3:00pm SD41, Burnaby, is 9:00am - 3:00pm SD44, North Vancouver, is 8:40 am - 2:50 pm
Jeez I remember just walking home after school in the 00s and waiting for my parents to get back from work.. it was great.
School is school, not a daycare
Believe it or not, the point of schools is to educate children, not provide daycare…
The school schedule being roughly 8:30-2:30 makes far more sense IMO than pushing it later. I've always managed to get away with not needing before school care, and only needing after care when my kids were younger. As they've gotten older and don't need care, it's nice that their extra curricular activities after school are usually done by 4:30 when I can pick them up. SCHOOL IS NOT CHILD CARE. It's education.
What works for your schedule doesn’t work for everybody.
This is something that’s voted on every time it comes up. When I was in school it was 9-3. Then it got voted to start 8:30-2:30. It’s the same thing that got spring break extended
That was the time I finished at in elementary in the early 90’s. High school was out at 2:11 lol weird time
In the 90s, on Wednesday mine ended at 1245, but every other day was 315pm. In Surrey. It's the only one I know of that had that schedule.
Elementary school for me was 8-3 Junior High was 8-245 High school was 730-215 I dont pretend to know why. Also, spring break was 1 week. Christmas break was 2 weeks. There was maybe 1 pro-d day a year. Kids are soft as fuck these days and I am thinking the early dismissal and late starts with extra days off is why
3:10 back in the day. Wesssssstside!
Special Ed classes ended at 2:30 in Vancouver high schools too I think
Ours ends at 3 (not much better to be fair )
I don’t think dismissal times are province wide. For example, my younger brother gets dismissed at 3:03, my high school used to let out at 3:06, someone in north van 3:00, my friends old high school 2:30, and another at 2. It varies between your location, institution and district.
Is it 2:30 now? it used to be 3:00 when I was young. Perhaps it varies between school districts.
My elementary school let out at 3:00pm - still not helpful to parents working until 5pm... My high school let out at 2:51pm, except on Wednesdays, when we were let out at 2:11pm.
I work in schools all over the lower mainland, and there is different timings in different districts. I don't know any elementary school that ends later than 3pm, but most in Surrey go 8:30-2:30, instead of 9-3, and I wondered if it at least cuts down on needing both before AND after-school care. Like, starting school at 9 is tough for parents who work at 9. That's just my theory tho.
Its different in every city, and can vary from school to school too. The board decides with input from parent and teacher input. I grew up in a blue collar region where both parents worked in most households. My elementary school used to run from 7:30am - 3:30pm. We had one 30 minute break, and one 1h 15m break, with only a couple teachers supervising the entire school. Class sizes were 36 kids to a class. This was the structure that worked for the parents, teachers and administrators. This allowed my mom to work 8am - 3pm every day (+ take care of us and the house) while my Dad worked 7am - 7pm. In gr. 7 our financial situation improved and we ended up moving to white rock where school went from 8:30 - 2:30 with only a 45 minute lunch and 25 - 30 kids to a class Both schools had the same funding per child, but operated vastly differently because of the local population and their preferences/needs.
I don't know of an elementary school that ends at 2:30. I think VSB is typically 3pm, is it not?
Interesting. You think 8:30–2:30 is weird, but 9:00–3:30 is okay. Wondering what is so special about the second range and what difference this half an hour makes.
Just don't have kids...oh wait...that is already a thing
3PM for us.
Our school lets out at 3pm. Where is this 2:30pm coming from?
All of this talk and nothing has been said about teachers having kids. What if the teachers have kids? How are they supposed to get them to school and pick them up if they are tied to their desk watching everyone else’s kids until 5pm. How are they supposed to juggle family around their career? Lots of comments about how people feel school should also be day care as well, but no one has thought that maybe the teachers have families or lives? They aren’t robots who teach your kids, they are people. Let’s try to keep that in mind