Year Round Schools

For those of you who don't know, here in Clark County most of the elementary schools run on a year round schedule. Year round schools are used to enhance the academic curriculum's. It is supposed to cut down on the need to review from the year before and allow the next year teacher to introduce new curriculum's while past material is still fresh in the students' minds. Studies show that children on year round schools score higher on standardized test and miss less school.

Well, I hate year round school. When we first arrived here I heard mixed reviews from people about the year round program. I now know that those who gave the program a thumbs up are those that have all their children still in elementary school and those that give it a thumbs down are those who have one or more children on year round and one or more children on nine months.

Let me explain why I dislike year round school. In May, we had to decide what "Track" we wanted to put Maren on for 5th grade. So many questions started to come up. Do we pick the "Best" track? (that would be the track that is closest to a nine month schedule) or do we pick the "Best" teacher? Wait, what track are her friends going to be on? You see that is a very important part of picking your track. If you don't have friends on the same track, then when your child is off track your child has no one to play with. This can be a serious problem when you have a long track break and your child is bored!

Well, my friend and I decided to beat the system this year. We got a bunch of parents together and we all requested the best teacher, who happens to be on the worst track (which did up our odds that we would all be together). So, we now have a group of seven little girls that will all be in the same class together next year and will have them same breaks off from school. Yes, they have to go to school for part of the summer, but at least when they are off they can have play dates, sleep overs, and mini-trips together.

So, even though I still hate year round school at least we will all be miserable together. Or as these seven girl see it...they have the best teacher and are thrilled that they are all together next year.