Utterly Meaningless

You know, I’ve always wondered that, too. So I found a website that explains the theory fairly succinctly: kidsou...d.html

It looks like it depends on whether the school is on a single track or a multi-track schedule. Multi-track schools have 1/4 of the school on vacation at any given time. Multi-track could theoretically increase student capacity (or reduce class size) by 1/3. But having students on different schedules can cause a lot of challenges. Imagine if you have two or three children who are all on different schedules. When do you plan your family vacation? Also, scheduling extracurricular and athletic activities gets pretty hard when all the students are on different rotating schedules. So, I don’t know if it is worth the headache or not. Probably depends on how dire your overcrowding is.

Single track appears to do nothing, then, to reduce overcrowding. And I doubt that one could even realize the 33% gain in practice. After all, there’s no way schools will be in session Thanksgiving or Christmas week.

It’s hard to believe that the view is worth the climb.

but to the huddled masses it sounds like they are actually doing something, and it’s complicated, so it must work, right?

some days I’m amazed people fall for this stuff.

Is the air conditioning factored in — or is the climate such that the A.C. runs a lot anyhow? (never been to N.C., so I don’t know-know what the climate’s like … when ‘hot’ weather starts and stops, etc.)

Then there’s also the strategy that not only do you have to be doing something, but you have to appear to be doing something.

NC is hotter than Hell! We have the best of both worlds– high temperatures and high humidity. 🙂

We turned on the air conditioning in early May and we’ll turn it off in October.

Andrea said it all for me except this one little part –

Schools overseas have “year round” schedules but their schools typically aren’t the palaces we have here.

Just sayin’.

It doesn’t appear to help academically, either:

In one of the most recent and most comprehensive studies of test scores, what may be the largest and most credible comparison to date of academic achievement of year-round calendar students vs. traditional calendar students, there was no evidence of academic superiority of the year-round calendar with its intersession intervention. 2 A study by the North Carolina Department of Education found no significant difference in academic performance (compared to traditional calendar students) for the largest percentage of students and only a slight bounce in scores of at-risk or lower achieving students, which the researcher considers “educationally insignificant by most standards.”

Many California districts with growing enrollment went to multi-track year-round schools to avoid building new schools. Multi-track tends to be very unpopular with working parents because kids are off at times when there are no programs for them. I don’t think teachers like it either. A good way to get elected to school board is to pledge to abolish multi-track, year-round schools.

A happy Wake County *homeschooler*…. one more aggravation we don’t have to endure.

But, actually, not all schools in Wake County (Raleigh) are going year-round, and no high schools run on a year round schedule anyway (although one runs on a *modified year round schedule*, lol).

It is primarily the overcrowded schools which are switching from a traditional calendar to year round, and that is mostly the elementary schools, although some middle schools are year round as well. So… a family might have one child on a year round schedule, another on traditional, and yet another on the *modified* schedule. It sounds like utter insanity to me! And, while Wake did try to give opt out options (or rather was legally obligated to), those moving into the area in the future will have precious little choice in the matter of school assignments/schedules.

This is all due to a Bond issue, which voters **approved** as it was cheaper for taxpayers than building more schools.

Toni

But how do they enforce the daytime curfew when 1/3 of their students are legitimately on break every day of the year? 😛

**THE** daytime curfew? Raleigh doesn’t have one… Good thing, otherwise the slammers would be full of kids!

I think Ulrike forgot the [/sarcasm] tag. 🙂

Dang if homeschooling doesn’t look like one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

tsk … bets on how long it takes Johnston to start? How many more bonds?

I voted NO last time. YES to parks & recreation and God Dang NO for more bonds for schools.

Figure it out people. Sheesh. (present company excepted, of course)

Another Wake county resident happy to be homeschooling. Even if there are 4,563 other reasons, not having to deal with the WCPSS would be enough.

A group of parents unhappy with the 22 school conversions took the school system to court in the spring. Judge ruled that while the system can convert the schools, they can’t compel families to attend the schools, they had to have a traditional option. The school system then further bullied families by telling them there was no way to tell which traditional school a family might be assigned to. So most families chose the devil they know (year round) to the devil they don’t.

Today in the N&O was a story about the fact that the 2600 students that did opt out of year-rounds are messing up the carefully laid plans of WCPSS — now the traditional schools are overcrowded and the year-rounds, no so much. Plus a sizable number of those 2600 are low-income (which translates somewhat to minority), which also messes up much of the much-ballyhooed non-racial integration plan.

As far as I can tell, it’s a cluster…well, you know.