By The Times-Ledger
On the elementary school level, the Board of Ed pursued temporary remedies such as parking mobile classrooms in the school yards of the most overcrowded schools.
The officials conceded that this was a temporary solution and they were only buying time.
But time has run out on the high school level. The public high schools in Queens are now operating at 128 percent capacity. Teachers are overburdened and students are asked to make numerous sacrifices such as taking lunch at 10 in the morning. Classrooms are overcrowded and, in some schools, counselors have been asked to set up office on the landings of stairwells.
Earlier this month a citywide task force, headed by Queens School Board member Terri Thompson, proposed a full year class schedule to help ease the overcrowding.
The Year-Round Education Task Force wants to keep high school students in class all year long. Borough President Claire Shulman had already proposed extending the school year to 11 months. What's one more month?
Like the trailers that have eaten up countless school yards, this won't work. The school system does not exist in a vacuum.
And, this may come as a shock to officials at the Board of Education: school is not life. School is a critical part of the experience of growing up, but it is not life.
Before moving forward with this scheme, the task force must find a way to assess the impact of year-round education on families. All nature of traditional summer-vacation plans would be thrown into a tailspin. Summer employment would be nearly impossible.
We also question whether more days and more hours in poorly equipped classrooms will result in better-educated students.
Family trips, sports and other activities are an important part of the greater educational experience. They help to shape character and they put meat and bones academic experience. In addition, the schools would also have to keep their schedules in synch with the nation's colleges and universities.
And what about the teachers? Although some teachers already teach summer sessions, others have chosen this profession precisely because it gives them two months each summer to spend with their children.
Bottom line: we don't need to keep children in the classroom all year long. We need to build new schools and to make better use of the time children already spend in the classroom.
The year-round school may look good on paper, but it won't work in the real world. Go back to the drawing board and try again.
