The International Schools Review Forum

I know most U.S. public schools are required to have 180 student days. Since 180 seems like an arbitrary number and I know International Schools are not as regulated as public schools in the U.S., without reviewing them, does anyone know of any International Schools that have a school year that is noticeably shorter than 180 days (say 175 or less)?

Sure there are a number of ISs that follow local calendars or their own calendar, that are less than 180 days of instruction (you will find a number with over 200). Usually when you add regional holidays and western holidays its less than 180 days of instruction. Many ISs that have external accreditation/authorization must have a minimum number of days of instruction between 180-190.

Egypt was well under 180. I forget the exact number but it was in the 160+ range (and of those, we came in late and left early every day for a month due to Ramadan).

I presently teach at an accredited school in Egypt. We are required to have 180 student days and our school calendar is adjusted yearly to account for our national and Egyptian holidays as well as Ramadan.

It's a myth that accreditation requires an particular number of school days. CIS, NEASC, Middle States, IB, etc... None of them require a certain number of days. (British stuff I don't know about. So maybe to be officially British in some way you need days, but maybe not. I don't know.)
Most schools write it into their bylaws how many days they will have, and many use 180 as a standard. But some have less. Only a few, and not the best ones. Others have more.

@sid

There is a much bigger world than US and IB accreditation.

Another terrific topic that only lends credence to those who say teachers are lazy and looking for the easiest job possible to heck with whether or not their students are learning! Well done for perpetuating this perspective. Sadly there is a sizable minority of teachers this describes perfectly, but I do believe it may very well be a majority of international school educators.

reisgio wrote:
> Another terrific topic that only lends credence to those who say teachers
> are lazy and looking for the easiest job possible to heck with whether or
> not their students are learning! Well done for perpetuating this
> perspective. Sadly there is a sizable minority of teachers this describes
> perfectly, but I do believe it may very well be a majority of international
> school educators.
-------------------
Yet another post of yours that serves no purpose other than to demonstrate that you are far superior to the rest (or at least most) of us lazy, gold diggers. TFF.

PG, yes the world is big. But CIS and the IB are international, not American.
And maybe there are other accreditations requiring days. I mentioned that very possibility. Perhaps, if you'd like to be helpful, you could identify any such agencies.

Oh puLEEEZE wrldtrvlr123! Cry me a river. Ciao.

@sid

NEASC and middle states are US accreditation authorities, IB is international and I indicated as such and CIS isnt accreditation at all.

CIS would be surprised to hear that. Here's a link to their website listing the schools they've accredited. http://www.cois.org/page.cfm?p=1913

Which still doesn't address your earlier point, and my request that you give us the names of accrediting agencies which require a specific number of days.

The British Columbia (Canadian) Curriculum requires a certain amount of days to be able to accredit schools.

Maybe the 180 days of student school days stems from the need for parents to have kids working on the farm in the summer time.... could be wrong, though. Now, it is mandatory for teacher and admin to gain their sanity back before the cycle begins again the next year,-).

Thanks lastname. How many, and what qualifies as a day?

If memory serves, the 180 day thing is related to the Carnegie Unit, but I don't remember how. Probably all ties back to agrarian practices, as Dredge says.