Longer Days or School on a Saturday?

Welcome to Mom Talk, a weekly feature at Medford Patch, where local parents discuss a question related to a hot topic. Let's jump right in to this week's question:

With , which would you prefer for your kids: A week of longer school days, or having school on a Saturday? And if school was held on Saturday, would you make them go?

Stacey Hilliard: Knowing the number of extracurricular activities kids are involved in, I think it would be hard – if not impossible – for an awful lot of families to commit to sending their kids to school on a Saturday. Not to mention, many (if not most) of us have a “working for the weekend” mentality, and I think our kids do, too. Taking away half of their hard-won weekend would be kind of cruel. (That said, if the decision to make up snow days by holding classes on Saturday, yes, I would make my kids go.)

Longer school days have been on my wish list for awhile… long before the subject of snow days came up. But that’s another matter. In the context of making up extra snow days, I would prefer a week of longer school days -- whether that’s accomplished by starting earlier, going later in the day, or doing away with our 1:30 release on Wednesdays (my personal preference). I just hope that if it comes to this, our teachers will be given enough notice of the plan to allow them to adjust their lesson plans in ways that make good use of the extra time.

Stacey has been a Medford resident for 13 years and has
two sons, ages 9 and 7.

Nancy Quinn: I think having longer school days or taking some April vacation days makes much more sense rather than have class on Saturdays. Lots of kids have extra-curricular activities on Saturdays, not to mention family-time. Weekends are often the only time families have to spend quality time together. If my kids were school age - I would probably send them to school on Saturdays, but not be very happy about it. 

Nancy has been a Medford resident for 7 years this Spring. She has two kids - 4 years and 21 months.

Maria Alcindor: I would prefer longer days.  There are music classes and sporting events already set up for Saturdays.  Also- a six day week would send most kids bouncing off the walls.  Let's hope for small storms only in February and March!

Maria has resided in Medford for 5 years, she has a 3-year-old son.

Adrienne Szafranski: Longer days will affect after-school activities and after-school care.  Saturday classes would affect team sports and activities.  It would take a week of longer days to erase a single snow day while a single Saturday school day would do the same thing.  

My kids are younger and having school on a Saturday doesn’t affect their schedule the way longer school days and missing therapy appointments would.  So I vote for Saturday.  If school is held on a Saturday, of course they’d go.  It’s school.  

February snow days could cause canceled soccer and baseball games in June.  That just shifts the scheduling headaches from one public facility to another!  Now that’s a New England winter!

Adrienne has lived in Medford for 11 years with 4.5 and 6 year old boys.

Tiffany Reevior: Given the choice, I would prefer school on a Saturday. I think getting all the hours done in one day would be a good thing, rather than prolonging an entire week. Either way would work, though, and they're both better options than adding days in the summer.

And yes, if school was held on Saturday, I would send my son to school. It's only one Saturday out of an entire school year and, as an added bonus, it would give me some extra time too!

Tiffany has lived in Medford for 4 years and has a 6-year-old son.