Top 6 reasons I don't teach summer school

It's the middle of June, and I am SOO enjoying my time off. People ask me all the time if I am doing/have done/ will do summer school, and my answer is always the same. Heck no!

Here are my top 6 reasons why not:

6) I was scarred for life by Summer School, the movie, starring Marc Harmon and Kirstie Alley.

5) Summer school begins before 12:30, my daily summer wake-up time.

4) I would hate to take away the opportunity for a teacher who has worked all his/her life to get a coveted summer school position.

3) If I taught summer school, I wouldn't be able to do my yearly Australian walkabout in July.

2) I once heard that you had to wear a shirt and tie to teach summer school and that there are 35 kids per class, and there are no lunch or bathroom breaks. I made my decision based on that, and my mind can never ever be changed.

1) It just doesn't pay enough. And by "enough" I mean $3.4 million and a private jet.

What happened to summer school??

I have never really had any desire to teach summer school. By the time the last day of school rolls around, I am VERY ready for a chance to relax and recharge the batteries. I especially don't like my school system's hours (8-3) or the fact that there is NO break during the day. No specials, and you eat lunch with the kids. So no thank you.

But that is not what this post is about. Rather, it's about the kids who are going to summer school.

The first couple of years I taught, we would make recommendations for summer school kids at the end of the year. This list would include kids who did not pass the TAKS tests (reading AND math), but it would also include kids who had really struggled and/or just barely passed those tests.

However, for the past couple of years, all that has changed. Now the only kids who we can send to summer school are kids who failed the reading TAKS. Now keep in mind that I am only speaking about 3rd grade here; I'm not sure how it is with middle school or high school. But there were several kids this year who either failed the math test but passed reading, OR hit the pass mark exactly on the nose, OR would just plain benefit from some extra schooling in general! And they aren't going to summer school!

Sure, we are told that these kids could maybe go, if we can provide extensive documentation on why they should be admitted into summer school. And maybe the reason I don't write said extensive documentation on these kids is that I'm lazy, OR maybe the reason is that I was handed the permission slips for summer school and told that they needed to be signed by the parents and returned THE NEXT DAY.

At any rate, there were 6 3rd graders from my school submitted for summer school this year. In my mind, there should have been about 30, but what do I know, I'm just a teacher...