Are You On Spring Break? Me Neither!
I can admit it – I’m a little jealous. I’d love to get a week off every year in the spring, but honestly I think this whole week long spring break thing is pretty lame. I don’t know if the full week is a recent thing, or a West Coast thing – but where I grew up our spring break consisted of the Friday before and the Monday after Easter – just a long weekend. So I have a few – someone pissed in my Cheerios – gripes about this thing.
First off – it’s a real pain in the butt to those of us working regular jobs – both those who do and don’t have kids. People who have kids all have to make other arrangements for them during the day. They have to pay money to send them extra hours at their normal childcare place, a spring break camp, or some such place – or they have to take time off of work and burn their PTO hours. And when they do that – it increases the work for those of us who have to cover for them, ’cause it’s not just one parent gone, but several who take the week – or at least a part of it – off. And if you want a vacation day during that week but don’t have a kid…well no such luck getting that approved.
Secondly – The whole world does not revolve around the school calendar. Only about a quarter of the households in the Portland area have school age kids – yet suddenly everything in town is on a new “spring break” schedule and costs more than it did last week or will again the following week. And people will talk to you as if you’re supposed to know: “oh that beach house you wanted to rent – I know that website says it’s $200 per night, but this weekend it’s $350. Why? Well it’s spring break of course!” Not for me it’s not!
Third – what the hell are high school kids doing taking trips to Mexico or Florida for anyhow? That is supposed to be a college experience. Enough said.
And finally, like I said, I can admit to being jealous – I’d love to have a teachers schedule. I whole heartedly feel that they deserve to be paid well, but when you consider all the time they get off – and how much they’ll all complain next Sunday about having to go back to work next Monday – it’s hard to listen to any whining about salaries that are pretty comparable to a lot of other professionals out there who do work more than eight months out of the year.
So happy spring break everyone! …. grumble grumble grumble….
Wow, I grew up on the west coast and even way back then, spring break was a full week off from school. Poor girl, you were cheated.
As for it affecting parents in having to make arrangements for kids, as a single parent of three children my only expense is the increase in the food budget. It seems as though my kids consume more food during school breaks.
Are you serious that only 1/4 of Portland households have school aged kids? Wow.
I do agree that it sucks when you see rates for rentals go up during spring break.
such is life. Where I grew up in the Northeast, we had Christmas vacation, Winter vacation (in February) and spring break (in April).
I work in the schools (not teaching, but supporting teachers) after previously being in the corporate world for 8 years and I can tell you that teachers DO NOT get paid enough. I can promise you that most of the teachers who are ‘off’ this week are using the time to catch up on lesson plans and grading papers thanks to low budgets that continually increase classroom sizes.
I guess when all the media cares about is covering Britney Spears and our government is focused on steroids in Baseball, it’s not much wonder that the quality of education in this country continues to decline.
I hear what your saying about spring break not being convenient for you, but maybe you should put your energy towards writing about things that matter a little more when discussing education and not making somewhat derogatory comments about teachers when they are the ones who are taking low wages and trying to educate the kids that will be taking care of you when your older.