All the schools in my area have before and after school programs for parents that both work or single parents or any other reason you want your kids to be at school longer. I recall my school as a kid had it as well. There isn't traditional class work but it serves as additional recess before and after school as well as lets age groups mix. There is a lot of social learning that happens in that setting that is good for the kids.
replyI agree with all of that. The problem in our area - I realize every local (US) school system is different, which itself seems to me to be a problem - is that the after school program is enormously expensive. Our kid is skipping (public) TK to stay another year in his private (all day) pre-school because TK + after-school is only, like, $50 / month cheaper. Not sure why three hours of after-school costs the same as 7.5 hours of Montessori, but it does.
replyOur after/before school system is run in partnership with the local YMCAs. There are high school kids that help in addition to some teachers, paid extra for their time, and paid staff.
replyMaybe you could join the local parent teacher association and see if anything can be done to make it cheaper.
That's what we do here. Around my high school there are dozens of 'after school' classes where parents send their children to stay until 7~9pm.
replyNow the birthrate is literally the lowest around the world, at 0.7[0]. The other comment is spot on:
> 7-6? Why even have kids
Humans should create societies that are friendly to parents who take care of their children. Not societies that encourage parents to delegate their children to someone else, being it nannies, schools or governments. Otherwise people will eventually ask this question: Why even have kids?
[0]: to put a scale for how low 0.7 is: you might have heard that Japan has a low birthrate. And they are at 1.15.
7-6? Why even have kids
replyThe kids don't have to be there the whole time. Just the school is open. So you can have school open at 7 for dropoff and the kids can play in the yard but school actually starts at 8:30 or 9:00. Same at the end, classes might end at 3:00 or 4:00 but the school is open with supervision until 6:00 and the kids can play in the yard until the parents come get them.
replyYou expect teachers to work 12 hour days on top of being paid garbage?
replyYou don't need the same teacher all day. You can have someone who watches the kids in the yard in the morning before classes start and a different person who watches after classes, and neither of those people necessarily need to be full class teaching teachers.
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