Comments about ‘5-day school furloughs approved for Utah schools’

Get rid of Activity Trips and have parents pay for their children riding the bus to school. The districts would save more than enough money to make this very worthwhile.

Every employee but those hired under education so far has suffered from the recession. Furloughs is a fair way to take the burden off tax payers to finance education. Administration, teachers, and staff alike will bear the burden and students who are inheriting the problems of society will not suffer class size increases and have their learning opportunities compromised.

We have found the last 10 days of school is a total waste. Our children come home and we ask them what they did during the day and my wife and I just look at each other and shake our heads. If they're not going to teach them those last days let us have them home with us. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

I assume you live in St. George. The activity trips are funded by the participants through fund raising.
It would be difficult to comprehend how much money the area of St. George would lose if they did not host the spring time tournaments in Softball, Baseball
and Soccer. The schools that participate bring fans and their money to motels, restaurants and other local businesses.
Let me guess. You were probably never involved in much of anything growing up. The benefits of these activity trips are immeasurable.

Education is far from perfect, but one thing is guaranteed...cutting it now will cost more in the future than can be measured. Utah's education right now doesn't have many of the issues that other states do, but don't take that for granted.

Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a lot of truth in what you said and having been involved in education, we have looked at the problem of the last few days of school being non-productive. The problem is, the "last few days of school" will always be the "last few days of school" no matter when they fall, be it in June or in April. It is just hard to wrap things up and finish up a year of learning in one day.

Anonymous accuses teachers of not teaching during the last two weeks of school. I know that this is not the case within my classroom, but they have a right to their opinion. All that will happen, then, is that they'll just spend two weeks wasting school again with one week lost before that. Why don't you ask the teachers what happened or will happen during those last two weeks of school? Maybe your children aren't telling you the whole truth.

In rural small school districts, a large school model is utilized, there are just as many extra curricular programs as a large school but with far fewer students. To make the programs run, the students do every program. This puts them out of school for many days. This factor is compounded by the fact that rural school districts are usually remote so travel time adds to the missed days of the students. Until we stop trying to act like large schools our students will continue to fall behind and suffer.

Why are you excited to hear that thousands of people are going to be taking a pay cut? How is that a good thing for the education of our children, the economy of the state or the individual educators making less money?

In Europe, most schools close at the end of June. We really cannot afford to cut more educational days out of our calendar. I do believe, however, that we could use the last few days in high school a little better.

One big problem is trying to get textbooks (and other things) back from students at the end of the year. Also, the students "turn off" their brains when they see the end is in sight and resist any further education.

How much money would it save if we graduated qualified High School Seniors at mid-year? I personally know a Senior that will graduate this year with her High School Diplomat and her Associate's Degree due to concurrent enrollment. I also know she only has classes half a day and sluffs most of those. Teachers Aide, Orchestra and some other class. She has had detention for sluffing, but she is an Honor Roll Student. She calls it "Senioritis". I know not all Seniors would qualify and that would be fine. Why allow a student to malinger in High School?

Stupid is as stupid does. The state board should be sacked now.

Dear Mosieur le Prof; Tell the whole truth. They close in June and are back in school in August. That is the way it is in Baden Wurttemberg. If you are going to get on here state the facts.

It is easy to get the textbooks back. No grade is sent to parents until all textbooks are returned or paid for. That is a no-brainer.

I'd suggest getting rid of the activity trips. These trips are a waste of time and money.

For instance using a large bus to haul 35 kids 450 miles one way (900 mile roundtrip) for a two hour an activity is ridiculous.

Only 1 out of 10 kids even care about the activity busy texting each other the whole time anyway not caring about anything other than being out of the classroom.

I am sure that I have never had your children in my classroom, as I teach my students EVERY single day, BELL to BELL.

The five days that your student will be missing from my classroom will be five days of instruction that would have prepared your child for next year.

The pay saved will, on the other hand make sure that we teachers "feel the pain" everyone else feels at this time.

The embarassing thing for this state is that we teachers feel that same pain everytime we are paid, when you compare what Utah pays teachers to other states.

I understand we signed up for it, and if we don't like it, we can leave.

Well, I consider myself to be a good teacher, and have just notified my district that I will be leaving.

It's too bad, the students say they will miss me, and I will miss them, but I just don't appreciate working for what this state is willing to pay.

I might have even had your students in class next year. However, I will have some great new students next year who will appreciate what I do.

It's win/win.

Why not, Utah doesn't value teachers or educating children very much. To save money they want to even eliminate a complete grade in education (K-12). They don't think its worth their time to keep children in the class rooms anymore. They've learned enough in 11 years so turn them loose and send them to college to hide them a few more years.

Dissolve the costly sports games and non educational programs. School spirit is learning, not fighting and having animosity towards each other. Put schools back on a 9 month year and terminate all day care and food services. Teach only english in classes, force others to learn it as their primary language like they should be doing.

As of yet, there has been no real effort to cut cost and spending, only efforts to increase spending on non education frivolity. Education requires time in the class room and every hour lost in the classroom we all lose. Put the state and district offices on furlough for 30 school days.

Murray School district is the worst run, least efficient outfit I have ever seen. We use to have pride and vision. Now we have people with jobs working not to get fired. I would like one person in leadership to show one glint of vision or leadership.

A furlough is a great example of Administrators NOT doing what they are paid to do, live within a budget! Cut the spending; lay off the people not needed. Administrators, earn your pay! Everyone is cutting back to not spend more than they make or take in but you (schools) feel that you are exempt from it and do what you can to not face real decisions.

Go live in Europe then. Everybody should let the students have their last two weeks of school and not change a thing about them. We as parents had it when we were in school so why should we take it away from our kids? "Improving" them would not benefit the students in any way. It's part of high school. Just leave it be.

This is tragic. What's happening to our great education system that helped to create our strong, creative country? Public education is essential to our national welfare.

I read that ultimately the Iraq War has cost us $1 trillion. What a waste of money that could have gone to help American people.