Monday, August 27, 2007

Traditional Schools BUSTING at the seams!

Today the traditional schools in Wake County started classes, and projections show that they will be severely overcrowded.

If the projections hold true, over 75% of the traditional calendar elementary schools will be over capacity today.  In contrast, almost every one of the year-round schools has available space to take more students.

My younger children are in one of the newly converted year-round elementary schools, and they have already started the year AND have also experienced a full track-out period for the current school year.  As far as they’re concerned, the school year has been going smoothly.  They’re at a school they know, they have friends in their classes, and now that their brother and sister are in school it will be more “normal” to them.

Today my older 2 started classes at the middle school.  Since their younger siblings have essentially been “going to school” since early July, they feel fortunate (but guilty) to have had a real summer.  We met their teachers last week and saw some friends in each of their classes, so they were looking forward to seeing what the new year has in store for them.  We are walkers so my kids don’t ride the bus, but the bus service appeared to be operating “as usual”.

I feel a little bit left out now that they’ve all abandoned me for school!  We had a fun and busy summer, and I miss my kids already.  I’m sure we’ll have a great year once I adjust to being solo during the days.

The latest talk at bus stops, carpool lines, and on the news pertains to the overcrowded situation at the majority of Wake County’s traditional schools.  Obviously, all we really know right now are the “projections”, and actual numbers will not be available until after the 10th day of school (sometime the week of September 10). 

From what I’ve been told, we should expect a HUGE uproar from parents at traditional schools now that they are in such an overcrowded situation.  Last year, we were on the traditional calendar and were technically “over crowded”.  To spend time in the school (I was there EVERY day) it never felt over crowded to me.  My children had the earliest lunch slot AND the latest, and 2 of my 3 were in mobile classrooms.  Obviously, if given the choice (all things being equal) I would have preferred to have all 3 classrooms in the building and all 3 children eating lunch at 12:00 noon.  HOWEVER, when faced with the choice of staying traditional with early/late lunch and having classes in mobiles OR converting to a year-round schedule, the lunch hours and mobiles were small sacrifices to make in order to keep our school on a traditional calendar.  The majority of families at our school felt the same way, and we had come to accept these small “inconveniences”.  (However, even with the conversion to YR one of my children is in a modular, 1 has lunch at 10:40 AM, and 1 has lunch at 1:40 PM so even though we’re under capacity those things didn’t “go away” with the conversion either)

NOW, all I’ve heard the past few weeks from friends at the traditional schools is “bringing in mobiles is unacceptable”, “I will not have my child eating lunch at 10:45 AM”, or “the situation had better be much more positive than we’ve been told or there will be trouble”.  I’m afraid that the things we had already accepted are going to become MAJOR inconveniences to families who have not had to experience them before.  If the families who were forced to convert to YR schools seemed upset, I’m guessing that the unhappiness experienced by these traditional calendar families will be MUCH greater.

How was the first day for everyone else?  Were the busses on time?  Classes full? 

Monday, August 13, 2007

Time To Discuss Reassignment for 2008-09

It’s hard to believe, but in just 3 weeks the School Board will be having a work session to discuss the reassignment plan for the 2008-09 school year.

The session is scheduled for September 6, and from what I’ve heard it’s open to the public.  However, this is one of their “work sessions”, so no public comments will be allowed.  Community engagement meetings will be scheduled at a later date.

Families are still trying to come to grips with the current school year.  Considering the fact that the MYR plan hasn’t even come close to accomplishing what it was supposed to do, there is still a great deal of uncertainty.

There are 3 new elementary schools slated to open under a year-round schedule in July 2008.  So many of the converted schools are now extremely under-enrolled.

Will the new schools now open on a traditional schedule?  With such a great demand for traditional schools, will some of the schools that were forced to convert this school year be allowed to revert back to traditional for 2008-09?  Will all VYR families be allowed to finally get into a YR school?

One thing’s for certain.  The School Board members have their work cut out for them, and I don’t envy their position at all.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

HOT! HOT! HOT!

With temperatures soaring into the 100’s, are our kids better off in school or at home?

This is the first year in which my children have attended YR school and also the first time in which they are riding the bus.  The thought never occurred to me that the buses didn’t have air conditioning.  I thought that was a no brainer.  It gets HOT here and this week has been stifling.  When it was in the 90’s and the kids came home from school, their little faces were all red and sweaty.  I asked them that first day if the bus had air conditioning and they all said NO!  I was really not happy about that but they assured me that with all the windows open the breeze kept them cool.  I really didn’t buy that for one second but OK.

So when I first heard that the temps were going to get above 100 degrees this week I thought surely they would cancel school because of the dangers of heat on young children.  You see it all over the TV, be careful with the elderly and very young.  Well school went on as planned.  Recess has been indoors all week for the children so that they don’t get overwhelmed by the heat.  And yesterday, to my utter surprise, they came home on a different bus.  An air conditioned bus.  I was relieved.  Just sitting at the bus stop waiting for the kids was an extreme experience when my car thermometer read 107 degrees this afternoon. This showed that they had some planning in place to help relieve the heat on the bus for the riders.  I am, however, dismayed that this did not occur for everyone.  I should.  No questions asked. 

So the question was are they better off in school or at home.  That is a toss up for me.  I feel that if they were at home, then riding an overheated bus would not be an issue.  But then they would probably be bored watching movies or playing video games all day.  At least in school they are learning something and being productive.  I find that school administrators have made, for the most part, good decisions about recess at our school.  I did just find out that my older child did actually have morning recess but was only allowed to remain outside for 20 minutes max.  At least it was only in the nineties then;)  I don’t really agree with that one but he is at an active age and probably needed to run some outside to burn off excess energy. 

Why does this county still have buses without air conditioning?  For the safety of our children I must insist that this be a high priority if the county is going to continue with YR schedules.  This should have been part of the planning for this and yet somehow they seemed to overlook it.  Was it an honest oversight or a supreme lack of knowledge or caring for our children?  What do you think?