My daughter has been grumbling about having to go to school over the next few days and waste time sitting in the cafeteria. It’s time for makeup exams at her high school and if students don’t have any, there won’t be much to do except chat with friends. Of course, my 15-year-old isn’t  griping about being able to have a good time, she just doesn’t want to do it confined inside the school.

I agree.  If there are no classes and if students have fulfilled all other academic requirements, why don’t administrators just let the kids go or give them something to do? Many of the kids just won’t show up and it seems ridiculous to mark them absent. School continues for another four days to meet state requirements for minimum school days.  Most school systems use the last days of school for administrative cleanup.

My nearly 80-year-old mother believes children should be in school, no matter what. When she was growing up on a farm in the 1930s and 1940s, attending school regularly was something only the “town kids” did, she says. She would miss days in the spring to help with the planting and in the fall she would be out in the fields when the “town kids” returned to school after Labor Day. She would usually go back by the end of October.

Certainly, I believe in a good education, too. But the schools have to step up and not squander these school days. Why not set up reading clubs and have the students read books and discuss them if they have to congregate in the cafeteria?  What about having them play academic games? Why not get them to write essays on the successes and challenges of the school year and have another student to critique it?

Our public schools nationally are straining under the pressures of budget cuts and teacher layoffs. But it doesn’t cost anything to be creative.

Related posts:

1. Writing a back to school contract
2. Attending a 40th high school reunion
3. Will our teens ever get enough sleep on school nights?
4. Adjusting to a new high school
5. Take back the responsibility for educating your child