I had a related problem. I anticipated I would have less students than actually came-- our attendance surprised me for sure. But I avoided planning anything instructionally significant for fear that I'd have poor attendance. It was a waste of two days.

In my line of work it's typical to have "plant shut-down" between Christmas and New Years. It used to be that BCPSS rounded the break to full weeks while I just got off from Christmas Eve to New Years day. Now we're more in alignment, though I will be taking a vacation day on January 2nd to have our holidays match.

Logistically I can handle kids having days off when I go to work (I know how lucky I am), but I think it's better for the kids to have a more reasonable length break - as it is I have a hard time getting them to do some of the bigger tasks because "we've still got a lot of days off, can't I just take a break?"

Another plus is that the break is short enough that I can keep a certain amount of structure in my youngest one's days. A lot of free time for autistic kids is just bad news and leads to stress for the whole family.

I know that for big trips the longer break would be better, but for us I think it works out fine. And for what it's worth the last two days had plenty of real work at the middle school and high school level (at least from a kid's perspective).

Perhaps you could also ask, "What's the point of a 3-day week?" leading to "Schools should be closed all week for Thanksgiving" (oh,no, wait, you wrote something very like that her last month)

We could then move on to, "What's the point of a 4-day week?" and then make a case for an entire week off for all of the National holidays.

Trust me, people in offices are just as anxious to be out as are teachers. The teller at your bank? Oh, yeah, s/he wants to be gone.

School is in session because kids are supposed to be there.
If school closures are dictated by when the students are willing to show up, school wil never, ever be in session! Kids are not dumb. Let's not fall victim to the Lowest Common Denominator theory of education.

We have enough days where students don't show--when it rains, when the buses pas them by, when it gets too cold, when it might snow, etc. Most of us keep on planning for the best and continuing to be disappointed. What I have always found interesting is how the parents complain about schools being closed but keep students home days at a time to babysit younger siblings or run errands for them if they don't want to do things themselves. I can't tell you how many parents I have spoken to over the years who will tell me that it was more important for their child to stay home and take care of siblings than be in school themselves. Sort of makes me wonder what they really see as the purpose of school.

JSchool: So you are operating on the "if we don't build it maybe they won't come" theory? Maybe if you saved your best for those short weeks including the last few days of the school year when attendance is usually down, you might be surprised by what happens. Heck, think about it, if every teacher in your school planned something really amazing for those short weeks, what might take place - a change in the culture? And don't get me started on what would happen if all teachers in the system did their best stuff, you know what I'm talking about, their very best for those short weeks... Wow, the mind explodes with excitement!

I agree with where Eve is headed - if we stopped school on the Friday (this year the 12th of Dec.) then there would be kids who wouldn't show then. I say screw it and let's do what we are supposed to do.

Of course that's easy for me to say since my school has a totally different calendar and we had 3 weeks off and did get out on the 12th.

Enjoy the new year!!

Breaks over, back on your heads.

My husband works in a school where they were told that Monday & Tuesday were regular work days, no special lessons or fun stuff before the holiday.

He ended up having a total of 20 students over three class periods.