Like I have said before and I agree with rcarter2, school is very important and not a lot of information can be taught in a period if 6 months and with holidays and breaks, that cuts it down even more, so you are basically spending a minimum amount of time being educated. I think vacation is fine the way it is, plus I don't want to be 6 months away from friends at school for vacation, my vacation each summer is for 2 weeks then I am bored with nothing to do. That is why I think it is fine the way it is and we should spend the time when our brains are inactive trying to fill it with information and educate ourselves by reteaching information because if you think about it, 6 months is not enough go cover a year's worth of material and tests, so that is why I think it is fine the way it is so we won't become any less educated than we already are.

rcarter2 : That may be so but I've always been someone to think that schooling is both a scam and very over rated. First we have those lessons in classes teaching us students nothing useful for our lives or career choices. I remember asking my Geometry teacher why we're learning about Proofs in math and she responded with stating that if you were to become a judge you would need this. I asked when learning Matrices what these would be useful for and I don't even remember most of what I learned in school. I'd have to say that 70 to 80% (Just an estimate of what I believe I learned) is useless. This type of education could be cut out from schooling altogether. Doing so could cut down on taxes and force teachers into other jobs. Education would be more affordable to the people.

If we were to cut the amount of time from 9 to 6 months, I would go for that. The amount that we need to learn vs the amount we're told we must learn is well in favor of what we must learn. I would agree with reducing the amount of education from 9 to 5 months but like you stated, it's impossible.

I was only adding that they must think about the entire option. Longer days but less number of days or shorter days but more days to go. If I was able to choose, I'd have started sleeping in class in 6th grade and not in 9th grade. I hated school with a burning fire of passion partly due to the horrible curriculum. School, anymore, is treated like a business; It's more about how much more money the school can make and not what the school can do to help you. For these reasons I have no faith in our education system.

rcarter2 : aren't you a teacher? That would mean more time off for you...

But no. I think school should stay at 9 months on and 3 months off. It would be less time that I would have to deal with my children's stupidity when they got to that age. XD

Wouldn't you be bored out of your minds with 6 months of summer off?  There's nothing to do.  Also, education, learning, is the only way to do what you want with your lives.  So if we all just hang out and play video games for the first 15 years of our lives, what are you going to do for jobs?  Other countries go to school, love education and respect the ability to improve themselves and do what they want.  Americans, it seems, want to play video games and not learn.  If you don't learn, you have to flip hamburgers at McDonalds. Who wants to do that?

thing1 : Absolutely not. There is a minimum requirement for how many hours of school there must be. If they made it 6 months of school and and 6 months of break, those lost 3 months would have to be made up somehow. The only way to do that is to take away all other holiday vacations (no Thanksgiving break, no winter holiday break, no Spring Break), and the school days themselves would have to be longer. So it wouldn't be more time off for me, it would just be the same amount of break time in exchange for a excruciating school schedule. But on top of that, I also know how it is impossible to effectively teach what I teach in 3 months (since school is broken into 2 semesters, so one semester would only be 3 months in this case). It just couldn't work. The longer school days would not help. In cases where a class is about an hour and 45 minutes, that is about as long as teenagers can be in one classroom before they are mentally done. The mind can only take so much. Adding a couple hours each day and taking away all other breaks to make up for the 3 months added to the long break would result in kids being too mentally drained to do anything by the end of the day (and by the end of the first 3 months  for that matter). This kind of schedule would make any teacher's (and student's) life a living hell. But all the kids in this thread can focus on is 6 months of no school, and don't even really think of how horrible that would be.

Fireproof : Teachers would not be forced into other jobs. They get paid for working there. Their pay checks get split up. Therefore, over the summer they still get money.

I would rather have school 9 months and vacation 3 months because I don't have much to do outside of school and I get bored easily but school gives me something to do for half of the day and I can hang out with more people at school than outside of school.

I would like to have 6months of school and 6months vacation.

Pretty Easy answer. You'd have to be in grade school not to know that the more time spent in school, the more likely you are to being sucessful. I personally have a hard time with school. I have group setting issues and anxiety. However if I miss even one day of school I know what I missed out on and know how it impacts me as it builds up. Personally I'd prefer year round shcooling over half and half.  I mean if you want 15 grades of school rather than 12 then good for yo but I'd rather get it all done and over with within 9. Having school for 12 months could potentially do that but it would be a huge stresser. If we had 6 months school and 6 months vacation We'd have to make up for it with the extra time and unless your willing to go 7 days a wekk for 8-10 hours a day then it's probably better off just sticking to the norm.

A side not i would personally prefer a 2-3 month winter vacation and a 2 week summer vacation over a 2-3 month summer vacation and a 2 week winter vacation. I was born in the winter and love the snow.

I would prefer 9 months school and 3 months summer vacation, the weather isn't that great over here on the East Coast of England, in Boston. And I like school anyway, and I'm always interested in learning more(unless it is something like angles, which I despise so much).