[cecilpl2]

My dad and ex-wife were both teachers.

My dad was up at 6 and at school for 7am. Worked 7am-3pm (8 hours). He did marking for an hour or two most evenings, and a solid chunk on the weekends. Probably 50 hour weeks. And that's after 20 years of teaching the same classes, so he had all the materials.

My ex-wife was brand new to teaching so had to develop curriculum on top of this. She worked 7am-5pm every day plus weekends.

Calling parents, dealing with kids with special needs, developing curriculum, marking, department meetings, making lesson plans, running extra-curricular activities or clubs, private lessons, doing paperwork or photocopying, etc etc, it all mounts up. There's a lot of behind the scenes work.

Now, some teachers simply don't do this. You can easily skate by, work the bare minimum 6 hour days, and not give two shits about the kids. But most teachers care about children and education (I mean, you don't become a teacher for the money).

[bumby]

Is there a consensus among teachers if year-around schooling will help or exacerbate this problem?

[bcassedy]

I haven't talked to any teachers about this specifically, but based on my impression of the school system and public philosophy around schools and teaching that I've gleaned from my wife and many friends who are teachers, I think it might help in the short term but be worse in the long term. The one thing that seems nearly constant is that expectations of teachers are always increasing. So I think eventually we'd end up back in a similar place except teachers would have to keep the pace year round rather than getting a couple months off in the summer.