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Good afternoon everyone! I just found out that one of the ele. schools in the Raleigh area we were interested in operates on a year-round schedule. My first instinct was "no way!"....thinking again, I decided to see if any of you are in a year-round school and how the kids like it, how it affects youth sports, family vacations, etc.
I'd love to hear the pros and cons of a year round school system...anyone?
Thanks!!
Our daughter is in year round elementary school, she is in kindergarten. For us, it is great. You can find the "schedule" on the wake county public school website, wcpss.net and it will show the different tracks (there are 4) and their track out schedule. There are times the entire school is closed (the week surrounding christmas for instance) and the week of surrounding the 4th of july. My daughter is on track 4, so she starts school July 31, and has her first break at the end of september,(really the break began at the beginning of october) and she was out for 3 weeks. She tracked back in last week, and will be in for 9 weeks. She gets out for the holiday break, then she has the first 3 weeks of january off, then again three weeks in april, then basically, the entire month of july (since the entire school is closed the first week of july). So, tracks 1 and 4 tend to have a "summer" in that track one has 4 weeks, 3 being in june and the 4th is the july week.
For sports, if a student is tracked out during sports (which I believe start in middle school), then they still return to school for practice. For us, it is a great experience. The kids are in school long enough to get antsy, then they track out and have a nice break. We are really able to plan our vacations out because we know that we don't have to cram things in over the summer. So, we can take a ski trip in january, we were at the beach for her october break and it was great, still warm enough to swim, etc. Because year round schools are becoming more popular, there are a number of track out camps, etc that are available for parents who are working and need someone to watch their kids while they are tracked out.
Also, use the search feature on the forum, you will be able to find a wealth of information on year round schools.
I am also for year-round schooling. We're looking to move there from South Florida. My question is, if we move in the middle of OUR school year here, say March or April, how does that "translate" to one of the year-round tracks? My husband's job is being consolidated out to Tulsa, OK, and he is looking to transfer up there and we might have to do it in the middle of our traditional school year.
Good afternoon everyone! I just found out that one of the ele. schools in the Raleigh area we were interested in operates on a year-round schedule. My first instinct was "no way!"....thinking again, I decided to see if any of you are in a year-round school and how the kids like it, how it affects youth sports, family vacations, etc.
I'd love to hear the pros and cons of a year round school system...anyone?
Thanks!!
I think it depends on your family's schedule and lifestyle. If all of your kids will be in year round, I think it works out really well. I've heard all kinds of positives and really no negatives. There are plenty of "track out" options for kids during their breaks, no time to get bored over the summer, and being able to take family vacations during off peak times to save money. Also being able to travel during the year for longer stretches and giving kids nice breaks every quarter to refresh.
The only negatives I've really ever heard of are from families who have children on YR and traditional schedules. I think that would be hard to schedule around. We're in traditional school but are not opposed to YR schooling either. My only problem is having kids on different schedules.
I've got one on year-round and one on a traditional schedule, and I like that I have one-on-one time with them at different times. I do have a flexible work schedule, which I imagine makes it easier.
I like the year-round because we don't have to figure out how to entertain ourselves for a whole 3 months in the summer. The summer break is a perfect amount of time.
Wow! No negatives...I'm so surprised. I guess the term "year round school" sounds pretty daunting, especially to school-age kids. Sounds like it's really NOT year round, but full of many "breaks". I am a stay at home Mom and run my own interior decorating business, so really, any schedule would work for me. My kids are swimmers and having them attend school during the summer would interfere with summer-time morning swim practices.
Does anyone have kids in rec. swimming (i.e. country club or neighborhood pool) during the summer while attending year round school? What time is swim practice for these kids?
It really depends. I like the year-round concept, but it doesn't work for our family. We want our two kids to spend the summers in Europe with their grandparents. We don't want them to forget the second language they learned while living there. But they need at least 4 weeks to get back into it. And better is six. So we prefer traditional. If it weren't for this, however, I would be sold on the year-round concept.
My daughter is an adult now, but when she was in elementary school (4th - 6th) she was on year round. We loved it, her and I both. I was a single mom, and there were lot of things that were pluses to me.
First - NO back to school big shopping. This is great when you are on a budget. When she went back each session, I would get her one or two new outfits, new socks, undergarments, instead of everything at once. It was financially much more manageable.
Second, she didn't have to play "Remember What I Learned Last Year" every time she went back to school. Her memory and her grades remained very even throughout the year. To me and to the teachers I spoke with, this was very important since in traditional school year the first month is used to refresh the childs memory of what they learned the previous year, so it was like she was ahead of the game.
Third, she did not get bored over each break and going back to school each time wasn't that - "Oh man now I have to go back to school" attitude each time knowing that she wouldn't get any real breaks for NINE months. The 3 or 4 weeks she would have off was enough time for her to sleep in, watch tv, play with her friends and then go back to school. Those smaller breaks spread throughout the year, I felt kept her from getting burned out over the school over the year and her attendance seemed to be very good, too.
Fourth, it was great to have her off during "off season" times of the year like the month of February and October along with June. If we wanted to go to Disneyland, it was much less crowded, even on weekends in say October then during the summer. If you are an active family it is great since you can take a winter vacation and go skiing, or take off on a spring or fall vacation when most kids are in school and take your kids to do or see things they wouldn't necessarily do or see if they were only off during the summer. And if you are in areas of the country that the hot summer months are so hot kids wind up staying indoors a lot of the time, at least they are off in a couple of cooler months so they can get outside and play comfortably.
When my daughter started highschool - it was back to traditional.
I liked it. Lots of possitives for me. I can understand some people not liking it, but I thought it was great.
Char
Last edited by JustChar; 10-29-2007 at 11:14 AM..
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