I agree. It's time to revamp the school system. Let the children's families' have this time for closure to summer. In these parts, often summer has just finally arrived, just as it has in the past week or two! The reality is, many families' ignore the call back to school so early in the year, and continue their vaction - or return from - right through to the end of the long weekend, anyway. What is the big rush, anyway?

It makes more sense to remove the ridiculous "Professional" Development days, which are nothing more than an extra day off for the teachers and students, and lengthen the school day by at least 1.5 hrs., allowing children quality time to do their homework in a classroom setting, to have the "professional" assistance to complete and understand their homework assignments, while the teacher also uses that extra 1.5 hr. for classroom prep. time. A two week Christmas / New Year break is unnecessary and simply puts more strain on the family unit, because low and behold - parents do not get a full two week vacation during this time, now the need for childcare or the children are left to do whatever they wish for days on end. Any wonder children are hanging out on the streets, etc. - keep them in school, like they did in years prior!

In reality, our children are seldom learning anything useful throughout the whole school year, given the excessive amount of excursions, fundraisers for their school or some "needy" organization, or even the parent council. The fact is, when one sits back and looks at what is accomplished on a weekly or monthly basis - very little of it is actual classroom instruction that is required for a good basis of reading, writing or math.

But there are no shortages of scarring our children as early as kindergarten about how each of them and their families' are so "BAD" because we aren't financial capable of ensuring that we are doing everything these wing-nut environmentalists preach, including buying over-priced & unrealisitc dinky toys that won't be useful in our minus 50 degree weather, etc. WHY MUST OUR SCHOOLS PREACH GARBAGE THAT LEAVES OUR CHILDREN crying, traumatized and scarred, simply because of the garbage that is spewed in the classroom, which, more often than not, is not the belief system of the child's family or community.

Teachers need to stick to teaching our children the basics of education - so that they in fact CAN actually Read and Write, to insure they actually Understand what they read and write, AND Arithmetic so they will KNOW how to make change from a 20 bill without relying on a calculator or computerized cash register having to tell them! (Especially, when they can't even accurately count out the money to make up the change that is displayed on the register!)

At this point, our children are not being taught well enough to be able to function, let alone graduate from Grade 12 - and we then are expected to send them to University???

Currently, many parent's are realizing that the majority of school days are filled with excessive amounts of wasted time, "play" days, fundrasing, excursions, religious services, ridiculous "dress-up days" and a large variety of things that distract students from any real necessary education.

It's time to get back to reality and the basics. It's way past time that we bring teacher's back to earth from their self-proclaimed pedestals, because they aren't living up to even the lower level of those pedestals at all!

Dave: "They spend enough time in school as it is????" Have you any clue at all how many days kids are ACTUALLY in school? By my count, it is about 20 days less than it was 10 years ago. Have you also had a gander at the curriculum and how some schools grade our kids??? It is no wonder they are not getting the education they need or deserve. I am also opposed to students who just graduate from university and then head right back to high school to teach. Most, not all, haven't the maturity/knowledge/discipline/life skills at the age of 22 to deal with a class of students.
As for the teachers, they have waaaaayyyyyyy too many PD days/holidays/lax schedules. Yesss-I do have friends who are teachers and none of them feel overworked. They also love the two months in the summer, the two weeks at Christmas and the week at Easter not to mention every other holiday off. I spent years at a job where I had to work holidays, overtime, weekends --many people in Saskatchewan currently have two jobs in order to make ends meet.

So please--give us a break about the downtrodden teachers and students not having another week at the lake--it's insulting.

check out the 2008 - 2009 calendar at this link:

http://canaveral.scs.sk.ca/news/documents/2008-2009_School_Year_Calendar...

According to this, you can see that they tally up the teaching days (which must total 197 days)

But..Check out August:

Elementary Students do not even start school until the 28th of August, which means that their Teaching days are only actually 2 days for August, not 5 days as suggested on their school year calendar. They have been shorted 3 teaching days right at the start!
197 days - 3 = 194 "Actual Teaching Days" - which is highly debatable throughout the year!

High School Students Start classes on the 27th of August, which means that their Teaching days are only actually 3 days for August, not 5 days as suggested on their school year calendar.
197 - 2 - 195 "Actual Teaching Days" - which is also highly debatable throughout the year!

So, what many taxpayers wonder, is WHY WITH ALL THE ADDITIONAL DAYS OFF(which most often tend to fall on a long weekend already - otherwise called "Common Dismissal Days" OR "Professional Development Days") - NOT ONLY FOR STUDENTS BUT CLEARLY IS MORESO FOR THE TEACHING STAFF - WHY Must our taxes continue to increase for less actual teaching time, but extensive holiday time for teachers than ever before? (Although the Educational Staff will claim it is necessary for class prep time - something they are already being paid to doeither during class time and for working hours to 4:30 p.m - but many choose to leave at the same time as the students! Why must we pay for teaching incompetence and duplication of the system?

School Boards/Directors/Teachers - Come on, now! Do you really think the general public and parents can't see through your false claims of being overworked? Soon you will be expecting a pay cheque when students are being home-schooled by their parents - which in many cases is already necessary with the lack of instruction time and assistance given to the students in our public school system!