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We pay enough in tuition and get off half a day every Fri. not to mention every Yom Tov. The kids have enough “days of rest”,so who thinks we should ban the annual mid-winter break? Now I need to keep up with the Kleins and the Schwartzes and take my whole family away to Great Wolf or Florida???
As for the teachers and all school employees who will find this post very annoying,let me tell you that you get off a whole summer,and still get paid,and if this would be any other job in a store or office,it wouldnt just come with a week-ten days off in the end of Jan. just for nothing….
Also,didnt we just have anice break two weeks ago when our schools got cancelled for 3 days??
I understand its nice to have the kids home for a couple of days so they can go out and do some nice activities and bond with friends and family,but a week or ten days is just too much…
Whos with me? Let us storm the schools in protest!!
I think the week off is unnecessary, but I do think they should give a few (2 perhaps?) extended weekends, so people could go away from Thursday nite trhu Sunday nite.
Are you kidding me? I am looking forward to my grandkids vacation and them all coming out to Miami to visit me here, as well as my own kids and giving them a little respite in the warm sunshine. As far as the teachers are concerned, it is part of the agreement due to their small pay scale and the fact that they are always “late” in getting paid, so please fargin them their vacation, they need the break from their stress as well. And by the way, they don’t have “OFF” for the summer, they just don’t work in school, they work in camp, they work one on one, and in any other job they can do to make some money to catch up while the schools still owe them the money they haven’t caught up paying them.
As for the kids, they barely have time to breathe with all the “knowledge” that is being shoved down their throats as well as all the homework and tests. So a little time off to bond with their families, especially if the brothers and sisters can get away at the same time is well worth it. That is a rare opportunity so enjoy it if and when you can.
It is planned in your kids’ school schedule so you have plenty time to plan for it in advance. If it is not in your budget to get away why not get together with other parents in the same situation as you and take each others kids for one of the days and do something special one day per parent. That way the kids are entertained for the whole vacation and the entire slew of parents do not have to take off for the entire time. Some times kids are enterprising and older kids plan a day camp or activities for younger kids during break time. Although you don’t have time to plan ahead during snow days, you do have time to plan ahead for vacation days so take advantage of that.
i work in a school. we do not get a week off we get ONE day! and who gets paid in the summer?!?! i certinly do not and most of teh school employees i know dont either… and personally i need that one day off to keep me semi sane so please i am begging please dont make a big deal and let me and all the other hard working teachers sleep late one day!!
I think this line really showed your true intention
“Now I need to keep up with the Kleins and the Schwartzes and take my whole family away to Great Wolf or Florida???”
This has nothing to do with you feeling that the kids have too much free time and everything to do with that you feel pressured to exert yourself financially in order to appear as part of the community..
My advice to you is stop caring what anyone else thinks of you and your family…apathy in this situation will set you free.
And knowing the day schools they would probably charge a “winter break cancellation surcharge” therby making tuition even more expensive.
Let your children have a childhood and leave winter break alone
Now I need to keep up with the Kleins and the Schwartzes and take my whole family away to Great Wolf or Florida???
Why do you feel the need to do this? Why not just say no?
The Wolf
Is there a Great Wolf somewhere that has separate hours for males and females?
Great Wolf
I just want to state for the record that until this thread, I had never even heard of Great Wolf.
The (not so Great) Wolf
Its an indoor waterpark.
Schools do not take working parents into account. I work full time (get home at 6) and my husband is learning. What am I supposed to do during all these days off? My kids are too young to stay home by themselves (oldest is 5). Every year is a scramble. I get off 14 days per year, just enough for yuntif!
We pay enough in tuition and get off half a day every Fri. not to mention every Yom Tov. The kids have enough “days of rest”,so who thinks we should ban the annual mid-winter break? Now I need to keep up with the Kleins and the Schwartzes and take my whole family away to Great Wolf or Florida???
As for the teachers and all school employees who will find this post very annoying,let me tell you that you get off a whole summer,and still get paid,and if this would be any other job in a store or office,it wouldnt just come with a week-ten days off in the end of Jan. just for nothing….
Also,didnt we just have anice break two weeks ago when our schools got cancelled for 3 days??
I understand its nice to have the kids home for a couple of days so they can go out and do some nice activities and bond with friends and family,but a week or ten days is just too much…
Whos with me? Let us storm the schools in protest!!
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seriously, your issue is that kids have enough days off and now you need to keep up with the schwartzes? those are the most rediculous arguments! as it is kids barely get any physical activity in school, and people want to ban sports and exercising, and now they cant have time off either….these poor kids….
it is YOUR problem that you feel that you need to keep up with the schwartz’s, not mine and certainly not my childrens. i DONT feel like i have to keep up with them, although i love them dearly and think they are wonderful neighbors.
our family vacations have always been to educational/historic places, so while they are not in school, my children are still able to learn something. also, this is a rare chance for our whole family to spend time together. no one said you have to go somewhere big or expensive or far away. again, that is YOUR desire to keep up with the schwartz. (by the way, they must be wonderful people, because everyone is always complaining about having to keep up with them, and i cant imagine wanting to keep up with someone who is not an amazing person)
as to teachers getting off in the summer, youve obviously never been a teacher. most teachers i know spend the summer trying to prep wonderful lessons for the next year. dont know if youve ever tried to prep, but it doesnt take 5 minutes. as for the rest of the staff, they dont get off the entire summer! my mom has 4 weeks to take off as she wishes, on condition that everyone coordinates their vacations so that the office is always covered.
as for the kids, as ive said they deserve and NEED a break from all their hard work. by the way, i cant think of ANYONE I KNOW who has a week to ten days off. my sister has quite a few kids, and although her kids vacations overlap, none of them have off the exact same days, except for kids in the same schools. most kids have off three MAYBE four days, and all the boys i know have off LESS days than the girls which means the family cant go away anyway because SOMEONE will be missing school.
if you want to take all of that away from YOUR children then get them a tutor for that week. dont take it away from MY children too.
I feel really bad for your kids, just saying.
Dya know how much students look forward to midwinter vacation??? They count down from the day after Yom Tov Vacation!! Midwinter vacation lets us retain our sanity and rejuvenate for the next half of the year!! I don’t know about you but Yom Tov isn’t always that relaxing. Are you seriously gonna make your kids go back to school right after midterms???
Nobody is forcing you to keep up with the Jonas’s or whoever. if you feel the need to that is your own issue and don’t take it out on kids all over the world!!!
estherhamalka: If you have to keep up with the Kleins, that is your choice, no one else’s. As for the wonderful perq for the school personnel, ask the schools to negotiate lower compensation for the teachers, and see where that leads.
perhaps esther is referring to nyc public schools that get summer pay built into their contracts.
thats night and day from yeshivas.
by the way, there are many things you can do with your kids without taking a plane ride and going to a hotel.
nyc has more museums and other sites than many other states.
google it on line, you will get pages of attractions.
its great and my wife, kids and myself love it…Bubby and Zaide love when we visit them in Boca!
I understand your problems with taking off from work but I think it’s very important for kids to have time just to RELAX. I’m sorry you feel like you have to keep up with the Schwartz’s but that’s really your problem.
when i was teaching i was paid over 12 months. my salary per month was less, but my overall salary was the same. maybe that is what happened where you were teaching- they spread it out a little more thinly.
im not sure what schools you are refering to that have 10 days of vacation. im not saying youre wrong, because im sure you heard it somewhere, but ive never heard of such a thing. i always had 5 days at most, including shabbos and sunday.
why do you feel the need to pressure yourself into vacations or trips that you cant afford? better that you should stretch yourself thin than for you to say “no kids, im sorry, we just cant do that this year, so lets think of something really fun and exciting that we can do together as a family.” let everyone in the class think you are the poorest, its got to be someone. reality is that you dont want people thinking that about you. you can say its about your kids, but they have to have picked up the attitude from somewhere. yes, kids make fun of others, and if its not one thing its another. if they want to they will make fun of the richest kid in the class too…..thats kids, and theres not much you can do about it except to teach your kids that it doesnt really matter if other people think they are rich or poor, and it doesnt really matter where other people went or what they did or how they live.
Scor,
You have a husband. Ask him to help on those days
It should be banned at least for girls.
Whenever I’m in florida at that time I can’t enter most stores
or restaurants without tripping over
23.5 B.Y. girls
13.5 Machon girls
3.5 Girls that might be B.Y. but look like ……
and the lines.. my goodness the lines & wait time..
you’ll have to immediately take another stress induced vacation to where they can’t afford to go yet until the get a masters in
speech therapy/special/ed
I am sick of parents whining, weather its winter vacation or camp visiting day, be grateful for the blessings you have i will never have children so excuse if i get a little annoyed with the constant bellyaching, you have so much!!
There is no doubt that with children comes much responsibility and many headaches but the potential rewards of parenthood should make it all bearable.
I do not question why Hashem did not bless me with children or many other things in life most people deem normal, nor do i resent those who have been blessed, count your blessings for they are many
most schools just have 2 or 3 days pending upon how many snow days there was. no teacher gets paid for the summer (aldough we pay tuition, but thats a seperate ishue) and if you want to keep good teachers who for the most parts have growing families we need to give them a little break here and there, or we will have young new teachers every year.
If you really want something banned, call Albany, they’ll ban anything in a heartbeat. I’m waiting for the tax on breathing to solve the deficit. Oh, and a tax on dying, of course.
TheGoq, point taken, I remember someone that adopted 2 children 20 years ago telling me that what he had to spend in adoption fees is more than tuition.
C”V! don’t ban it! i need my sanity time! and majority of my class doesn’t go out of town (to FL or anywhere else) so i guess it’s not a chiyuv to go and “keep up” besides, don’t you think the teachers need a sanity break from us? 🙂
I do recall the same subject and all the rants last year. If the school administrators weren’t online last year or don’t care about YWN posters’ opinions, what makes you think it will be different this year?!?
Baruch Hashem for the much needed weeklong winter vacation! I am a first year pre-k teacher that works very very hard teaching 9 4 yr olds. 6 boys and 3 girls. Let me tell u- these kids can really make u so tired out that all u wanna do when u get home is to just put your feet up and relax a bit. I don’t know what I would do without the much needed winter break! The winter break will hopefully give me some relaxation, and rejuvenate me to continue teaching these kids for the rest of the year, and just btw I do not get any paid personal days, nor will I get paid for the summer.
Stop calling it midwinter vacation and start calling it bein hazmanim.
Esther, YOU are not the only parent who cannot afford to take your kids away or do something expensive in this economy. So YOUR kids will NOT be looked at as nebs. Stop worrying about what other people think and stop chasing everyone else’s pockets, patterns, or priorities. Figure out what is right for you and your own family, relax and enjoy your kids. Ask them to think of creative things they can do without breaking the bank. If they are old enough give them a budget. If they are not old enough they will just be happy to spend time with you. Use the resources your community has. Go to the library, take them to museums, visit relatives you haven’t seen in a while, bake their favorite recipes together. Make Tatty his favorite dinner together. Play dress up with your old clothing you should have given away moons ago. Do some bikur cholim if they are old enough. Take them to the Y and go swimming. Find an indoor play gym. Go mall shopping and give them each a couple of dollars that they can each spend wisely and let them make a small purchase. Go to Build- a bear and if you can’t let each of them make their own bear, choose to build one bigger one for Tatty, Bobby or Zeidy or one you can give to a sick child in the hospital.
There are many creative things you can do with the kids without having to keep up with the Klein’s, Schwartz’s or anyone else. Make your own adventures like having an indoor picnic or painting and decorating the basement so that your kids will be excited to tell their friends about when they get back to school and that they will look forward to doing the next time vacation rolls around again. Don’t be surprised if other parents call you for advice next year.
bein hasdarim: if it bothers you that much, maybe florida isn’t the right place for YOU. uh, in fact, it probably isn’t the right place for you even if it doesn’t bother you…
Yenta Babeh; Im sure you know that I sincerely value your opinion…
that being said, Florida, specifically miami, was created for people like me to get away from people like you. So keep your yenta-ing local. Thanks in advance!
“As for the teachers and all school employees who will find this post very annoying,let me tell you that you get off a whole summer,and still get paid,and if this would be any other job in a store or office,it wouldnt just come with a week-ten days off in the end of Jan. just for nothing….
Also,didnt we just have anice break two weeks ago when our schools got cancelled for 3 days??”
Although it’s been mentioned, this whole idea of “getting paid over the summer” is meaningless. In every Yeshiva (or public school for that matter) that I know of, salaries are agreed upon as a yearly amount. A teacher makes “x” dollars for a year of work, and obviously when they make the agreement they know what a year of work includes (i.e. it doesn’t include summer, yomtif, etc.) Then the yearly salary is divided either by 10 months or 12 months depending on how that school works their payroll. A teacher getting paid in the summer is simply having their salary divided up differently — they’re not “getting paid for the summer”! That would be like saying a person who gets a paycheck every week gets paid for his work every week, but if you only get a paycheck every other week, you’re only getting paid for every other week’s work! In any job the employer and employee arrange a deal that includes all the factors — what the working hours are, how much vacation time, salary, etc. Most jobs “in a store or office” come with a certain amount of vacation/ sick time, which you take into account when you take a job. Some people may take a job that pays less with the understanding that they have more flexibility to take vacation time, and some jobs may have more flexible hours, or less vacation and more pay. If the salary isn’t enough to justify the hours required people wouldn’t take the job. (BTW This is true for tuition as well. When you were told the price for tuition you already knew the school calendar — no school in the summer, time off for winter break, etc. So no one owes you a tuition refund because of the break! Again tuition is per year, not per day or month. Some schools bill over 10 months, and some over 12, but it neither case are you “paying for the summer”!)
Teachers in yeshivos make relatively low salaries per hour of work, even factoring in all the “getting off just for nothing”, and especially if you include preparation time and paperwork. Many good teachers are in this field for the sake of our children, despite having the ability to make much more money for their efforts in other fields or in public schools. Many teachers would require a higher salary if they were working in the school during the summer, as they count on that time to take other jobs to supplement the too low salaries that our yeshivos pay!
Winter break may or may not make sense for various reasons, but to complain about teachers’ salaries and working conditions is not fair.
BTW — The yeshiva my boys went to in NY was off for 3 days each year for winter vacation (either Thurs., Fri. , Sunday or Sun., Mon., Tue.) — I think it’s only the girls schools that give off a week. We never went away, as I was working and not off, but there were always plenty of other families who stayed locally as well. Many years I simply arranged “play dates” for my boys on those days. If that’s not enough, maybe you can find some high school girls who are also off to arrange some sort of “backyard camp” or supervise your kids on local trips. If your kids are older, let them make the camp for younger kids around! Maybe you’re hanging around the wrong people or sending your kids to the wrong schools if your kids are viewed as “nebs” because they didn’t go away for a fancy vacation.
I agree with the OP – midwinter vacations are ridiculous. Sorry, but you are dreaming if you think they bring bonding and family time – they bring boredom, and the resulting poor choices….the mall, the hang out…laziness… scrambling to find good choices for the inevitable — what are we going to do today? — And while nobody is forced to keep up with the Cohns, it is an added pressure to have to respond to the – why can’t we…and it is very challenging to make childcare arrangements for working parents. I think most people agree that kids do much better with a structured day and environment. I don’t think it’s a matter of what teachers deserve – our teachers are wonderful and they work with so much mesiras nefesh – but who says they are going to get to sleep late – they have their own vacationing kids to deal with…anyway my vote is NO MIDWINTER VACATIONS.
I agree with BPTotty – extended weekends are good –
these long vacations are no good at all.
I love having my ainiklach, but since they all just had three days off and will probably have another day off tomorrow, why do they need another mid-winter vacation? My daughters-in law all work- they don’t have a mid-winter vacation- infact they don’t have nearly the amount of vacation teachers do and not all working mothers have Bubbies to rely on either or babysitters for the big kids- Actually, most of the bubbies I know still work full time to help their kids- Do teachers work hard= YES- But so does everyone else I k now whether they are in chinuch or not!
we went to washington d.c on one of the winter vacations years ago and it was wonderful. ate at kosher places in baltimore and toured by day in d.c.
didnt cost nearly what a trip to florida cossts
I agree with the OP – midwinter vacations are ridiculous. Sorry, but you are dreaming if you think they bring bonding and family time – they bring boredom, and the resulting poor choices….the mall, the hang out…laziness… scrambling to find good choices for the inevitable — what are we going to do today? — And while nobody is forced to keep up with the Cohns, it is an added pressure to have to respond to the – why can’t we…and it is very challenging to make childcare arrangements for working parents. I think most people agree that kids do much better with a structured day and environment. I don’t think it’s a matter of what teachers deserve – our teachers are wonderful and they work with so much mesiras nefesh – but who says they are going to get to sleep late – they have their own vacationing kids to deal with…anyway my vote is NO MIDWINTER VACATIONS.
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it doesnt need ot be a last minute rush- spend a little time every day making plans. youve known since the day your kids were born that they are going to have winter vacation at some point. youve also known since the begining of the year, and since the yom tovim and since chanuka (all the big things which may have come in the way of planning). now that its all over and you still have a few weeks left, ask your kids for ideas. obviously you dont have to do each one, but you can get a feel NOW for what your kids want to do, and you can also find fun and interesting things to do online, which obviously isnt a problem for you since you are posting here 🙂
it will only result in bad choices and laziness and everything else you said if the responsible adult allows that to happen. even if you dont do anything as a family, your kids all have friends, so let them get together every day at someone elses house. (i think someone mentioned that already)
by the way, the answer to why cant we is “thats not what we decided to do right now” or maybe “because when we talked about what everyone wants to do that never came up” or maybe “that is not in our budget right now” being honest is not a problem.
one last thing. yes, many kids do much better in a structured environment, but everyone needs a break.
esther, everyone needs to feel validated and it always feels good when someone sides with you and agrees with you. Having said that though, I hope you can have an open mind and glean some good ideas from what the other posters’ comments. Vacations are not going away and you are going to have to work something out for your kids.
I for one would love to know if anything anyone said will be a solution for you.
BTW most teachers spend many unpaid hours every night to mark tests, prepare lessons, on the phone with parents. Time that realy belongs to their own family so its realy not fair to fuss about the few days off they get to take care of their own things.
the more modern = the more days off
more modern = days off in late Dec – early Jan
no,no. thats the most modern.
most modern- break in dec/ jan (which is 10 days- i think)
less modern- 10 day break in late jan
even less modern- 4/ 5 day break ( with boys and girls sharing maybe 2/3 same days)
My nieces went to a fairly frum OOT school that had vacation around Christmas time. There were a lot of boarders and it made sense for their families.
Where I live, we have “Yeshiva break” which is at the end of January. Its a really nice time for families to bond.
I think mid-winter vacation is a good idea. My kids kvetch a lot about not going to who knows where, but even so, I think they benefit from having a few days off. I take off one day from work to spend with them, and we all have fun. True that I would prefer that they not have those few days off, but that’s a self centered attitude.
I think all these snow days should be taken off of winter break! (Don’t tell my kids I said that)
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