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Can anyone who has an elementary age student tell me the actual number of children in the class? We are considering the Cary, Apex & Clayton areas and we noticed trailers at almost all schools we visited. Are the kids in the trailers all day long instead of the main building are are the trailers just used for specials like art & music or library? Also, how do the tracks work for year round schools...What do the kids do with their personal "stuff" when they take their 3 week breaks? Are other kids using their clasroom space while they are gone? Where would they go when they return after thier break...to their original classroom or another space? Sorry for all of the questions but we are totally unfamiliar with how the schools work there. With 2 elementary age kids, we want to eliminate any doubts we have about our move to the area and how the schools work. The size of the classroom is especially imnportant since I have a child with some special needs and I am not sure how well he would do in a super large classroom setting. Thanks for all your help!
I'm just curious because I read your other posts and saw that you said you were moving to Massachusetts and were asking about the schools there. So are you moving to MA or NC? The posts were all made today?
Hi. Sorry for the confusion. My husband can relocate with his job to Raleigh or to Boston. He hates the heat and wants to go North. I hate the cold and want to go South. I guess we should have put the words "we are considering moving to..." in our posts. We are trying to learn about both areas so that we can make an educated decision within the next week or two. Thanks for the question!
I can't answer all of your questions about YR school because mine are in traditional calendar schools, but class size is dictated by state law and varies by grade. Without going to look it up, I think KG is max of 21 and 5th grade is max of 25? (or something like that). But there are many overcrowded schools in the areas you are looking in (Cary, Apex, etc) so you will find schools whose classrooms exceed those numbers. If there is an available classroom, sometimes they'll take 5 kids from each class and form a new one in the same building, but sometimes they do have to be put into trailers if the school building cannot accomodate another class. In our experience with trailers, they usually put entire grades in the trailers to sort of keep everyone together. I have not ever seen the younger children in trailers though.
As for trailers: some schools have them to temporarily relieve overcrowding and some don't. We're in a Cary elementary school and we don't have any trailers. Usually, the kids are in them for most of the day and come into to the main building for specials, the library, lunch, assemblies etc. My eldest DD WAS in a trailer (in a different school) in 3rd grade and we had absolutley no issues with it. It is a self contained classroom with it's own heat and A/C, it was quieter than the rest of the building and was set just a few feet from one of the main doors. They were very nice and new feeling with everything the kids and teachers could possible need. She actually enjoyed being in it!
Hopefully someone else can help you with your specific questions about YR!
NCReportcard.com will show you class size by grade by school. Some schools that are over capacity have more children per class (e.g., West Lake Elementary and Cedar Fork had 24/ kindergarten class and Morrisville had 25). Of course there's been some reassignment in part to alleviate the over crowding of some schools so last year's numbers may not tell you much about class size for this year.
Can anyone who has an elementary age student tell me the actual number of children in the class? We are considering the Cary, Apex & Clayton areas and we noticed trailers at almost all schools we visited. Are the kids in the trailers all day long instead of the main building are are the trailers just used for specials like art & music or library? Also, how do the tracks work for year round schools...What do the kids do with their personal "stuff" when they take their 3 week breaks? Are other kids using their clasroom space while they are gone? Where would they go when they return after thier break...to their original classroom or another space? Sorry for all of the questions but we are totally unfamiliar with how the schools work there. With 2 elementary age kids, we want to eliminate any doubts we have about our move to the area and how the schools work. The size of the classroom is especially imnportant since I have a child with some special needs and I am not sure how well he would do in a super large classroom setting. Thanks for all your help!
I have 2 kids at Highcroft Elementary. My kinder has 20 kids in her class and my 4th grader has 22. My kindergardner is in the main building and my 4th grader (all 4th graders) is in the Husky Hut (trailer). The trailers are buidings, just detached from the school. They are VERY nice. I was impressed. When you walk into it, it has a long hallway and classrooms flocking each side. The classrooms look like any regular classroom you would find in any US school. They have air conditioning, heat, carpet, computers, blackboard. EVERYTHING a classroom has inside the building. The outside looks nothing like the inside. When they have lunch or a special (gym, art, media etc) they walk into the main building(a one minute walk, maybe less). The kids think its "cool" to be in the huts(as they call them).
When kids track out, they take all their stuff home. Its a backpack full, thats it. All the other stuff the teachers move. All the classrooms are set up the same for each grade, but your kids will move to a different classroom when they track back in. They are in the same hall or hut (at least for my school). EACH classroom has the name of the class, track and teacher outside the classroom, its even color coded. When your kids track back in they will have no problem finding the classroom (they also have plenty of staff, helping also). My kids love seeing the new room when they track back in.
At first I was leery as to how it would all "work out", tracking in and out and such, but they pretty much have it down to a science.
We are also enjoying year round and my kids do as well.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
I have 2 kids at Highcroft Elementary. My kinder has 20 kids in her class and my 4th grader has 22. My kindergardner is in the main building and my 4th grader (all 4th graders) is in the Husky Hut (trailer). The trailers are buidings, just detached from the school. They are VERY nice. I was impressed. When you walk into it, it has a long hallway and classrooms flocking each side. The classrooms look like any regular classroom you would find in any US school. They have air conditioning, heat, carpet, computers, blackboard. EVERYTHING a classroom has inside the building. The outside looks nothing like the inside. When they have lunch or a special (gym, art, media etc) they walk into the main building(a one minute walk, maybe less). The kids think its "cool" to be in the huts(as they call them).
When kids track out, they take all their stuff home. Its a backpack full, thats it. All the other stuff the teachers move. All the classrooms are set up the same for each grade, but your kids will move to a different classroom when they track back in. They are in the same hall or hut (at least for my school). EACH classroom has the name of the class, track and teacher outside the classroom, its even color coded. When your kids track back in they will have no problem finding the classroom (they also have plenty of staff, helping also). My kids love seeing the new room when they track back in.
At first I was leery as to how it would all "work out", tracking in and out and such, but they pretty much have it down to a science.
We are also enjoying year round and my kids do as well.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
You nailed it - and my daughter is in K this year year round, my son will be this coming year. Track out is great and I truly don't mind the year round concept. OP I am being honest here - you will like NC better than MA, unless you are on the cape, in the 'Shires, or on the NH border! DM for more info should you wish.
We moved from Central Mass to Cary. I love it here and never want to go back! Such a beautiful area here with awesome parks and attention to esthetics. Everything here looks new and clean. New England isn't without it's charm of course. Where do you live now? I just can't imagine anyone wanting to move into all that snow. If it didn't snow and was just cold, I wouldn't mind. The snow has to be moved. It has to be driven thru. Nothing stops for a foot of snow 'cept the schools.
New England snow is NOTHING compaired to Upstate NY snow....which I moved back to from NC and haven't had too much to complain about but I don't mind snow and actually like it more than most so I guess that's why. As far as schools and compairing relocating to NC vs MA, I've never lived in MA but the schools in NC are fine with the exception of year round if you don't like it and the reassignment/bussing issues. Schools in NC are county based for the most part so it isn't uncommon, especiallly in the fastest groiwng areas, for kids to get reassigned to different schools every few years. Sometimes the schools can be 20+ minutes away. Year round is not something we are fond of but there are people who really prefer it so that is all subjective. We did get frustrated with the reasignment and bussing issues with Wake County schools, and that and several other (mostly personal) reasons is why we moved back to NY. Again, I've never lived in MA so I don't know what living there is like (but there are certainly a lot of MA transplants to NC); but I'd say that the biggest thing you may be concerned about coming to NC vs MA would be the school reassignment and bussing issues.
You nailed it - and my daughter is in K this year year round, my son will be this coming year. Track out is great and I truly don't mind the year round concept. OP I am being honest here - you will like NC better than MA, unless you are on the cape, in the 'Shires, or on the NH border! DM for more info should you wish.
I'm moving to NC from MA, and while I'm excited about the move, let me just put in a vote in favor of the Boston metro area. We've lived here seven years and we love our condo and the parks nearby and the stores we can walk to and the fact that we can live without an automobile (a nice cost saving these days).
While North Carolina does look more "new and clean," that's partly because much more of it is new and has been built over the last few decades with the huge population growth here. The cost of that, of course, is the place is built on the late-twentieth century model of automobile-centric suburbs with subdivisions and homeowners' associations and housing developments without sidewalks or anywhere retail or business-oriented to walk to. Much of the Boston area, being built before the domination of the automobile, is more pedestrian friendly -- fewer eight-lane roads to try to jump across. I also appreciate living in a state where not even 25% of the legislators agreed to vote in favor of a ban on same-sex marriage, though that's obviously a very personal political preference.
Anyhow, I suppose it's only right that on a North Carolina forum folks will speak up in favor of North Carolina, and I'm sure on the Boston forum people likewise support Boston, but I just thought I'd throw in my (checking pockets...) seven cents here.
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