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posted by Greater Charlotte Harbor Sierra Club at
12:57 PM
1 Comments:
Plan to Help Florida! Please read.
Reduce demand and the price will fall! Even one year of this plan will result in huge benefits for America.
This plan would have a greater impact if implemented nationwide. Please consider and share with our legislators.
Enough is enough it is time to take action on fuel prices. There is something that can be done that will save millions of gallons of fuel daily without sacrificing anything. The only thing that we will need to do to make that happen is for a small percentage of our population to make a minor change in their work schedule.
The plan:
Change the school week to a four day week by increasing each of the remaining four days by 2 hours of class time each day. This will provide the students with the same amount of instructional time and in most schools even an additional 30 minutes of instructional time.
Results:
All school buses travel will be reduced by 20% as well as the diesel usage for the entire fleet of school buses will be reduced by 20%. Just think how much diesel fuel will be saved each week. The students will still get the same amount of instructional time.
Possible residual benefits:
Students will have a full day to work on homework, special research projects, and reports rather than dividing each evening into small blocks of time.
Many parents will not need the before/after school care because the student work day will be more in line with the standard 8 hour work day of their parents. (This will further reduce transportation needs to daycare each day.)
Parents who have young children in before school care/after school care already have caretakers available for short school weeks, holidays, and school vacations. High school students could earn extra money by assisting day care facilities with part-time help needed for the extra day of child care.
Students who need special tutoring will be able to devote a full day to the tutoring. (This could happen by having older students tutor younger students at neighborhood community centers, churches and day care facilities.)
In addition, emissions from the school buses will be reduced by 20% if they operate one day a week less.
Schools strapped for funding will be able to save on fuel expense. That savings could be used to fund the class size reduction, materials and even additional tutors.
No employees will need to be cut or reduced due to the lost day. Current qualified classified employees (food service workers, bus drivers, etc.) will be assigned to an ESE teacher or an inclusion teacher to provide tutoring or assistance to special needs students one day or a certain number of hours a week to make up the time so that will not need to sacrifice pay. This will also enhance academic assistance for our special needs students.
No employees will need to be cut or reduced due to the lost day. Current qualified classified employees (food service workers, bus drivers, etc.) could serve as aides, substitutes, media center assistants and other service related jobs during the extra hours to make up for the hours of service.
Staff development may take place during the extra day so that teachers do not need to leave classes for professional development activities.
In the 1970s America immediately responded to the increase in fuel prices and took action to reduce consumption by reducing the speed limit on the highways to 55mph and by changing to daylight savings time. This plan will be even less expensive to implement because we will not need to change speed limit signs which is labor intensive. Schools are currently beginning to plan the calendar for the next school year. It is now time to take action and help save our economy and help save our planet. Be a hero, TAKE ACTION NOW!
Thank you for taking time to consider this plan.
Nancy Parker
By
Nancy, at 1:19 PM
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