Monday, October 22, 2007

Gearing Up For Community Engagement Meetings

Well, as we have all heard, the Day 20 numbers are in.  WCPSS had projected that there would be 8,014 new students coming into our system, and there were only 5,930 more than last year.

While 5,930 is a lot of students, missing this projection by such a huge margin (26%) is particularly disturbing to me for several reasons.

In the fall of 2006, we heard a lot about the “Growth Crisis of 8000 new students coming into the system” and the fact that there were “NO SEATS for these children”  Actually, the threat of these “8000 new students” was the underlying reason for the forced conversion of 22 schools to a Mandatory Year Round calendar.  Back then, there were several people who challeged that number with facts and statistics, but it felt as though their arguments weren’t even considered.  Had the projection been only 6000 new students, there never would have been justification for forcing 22 schools to convert to a year-round calendar in such a rushed fashion.

SO, now we sit with under capacity year-round schools and OVERCROWDED traditional schools with new students arriving daily. 

I am continuing to encourage the WCPSS to survey all families in the system to determine the “School Calendar demand” before they formulate the plan for next year.  Until they know the actual demand, it is virtually impossible to set the “Supply”.

The ruling on the school district’s appeal should be back in early December.  Assuming that the Judge’s ruling is upheld, WCPSS will NOT be able to assign students to year-round schools.  I realize that in theory, having a school on a multi-track year-round schedule can accommodate more students.  BUT, in reality, if you cannot assign students to those schools, the empty seats do not accomplish anything.

There are 3 Community Engagement Meetings now on the schedule.  They will be held October 29 at Green Hope High, November 13 at Knightdale High, and November 15 at Sanderson High.  All 3 meetings will begin at 7:00 PM and are scheduled to last 2 hours.  Information used to build schools and assign students will be shared, and the plan is for all attendees to be able to provide input into the new assignment plans.

After these meetings, WCPSS will release a draft reassignment plan in early December.  Public feedback will be allowed, and then an official plan will be presented to the School Board on January 8.  There will be public hearings and work sessions, and the 2008-09 Assignment Plan will be voted on February 5.

I believe that there are a couple of things that WCPSS can easily do in order to ease the overcrowding at the traditional schools.  For starters, I think that by converting some of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar, there will immediately be traditional seats available.  Because my family was split onto 2 different school calendars with the MYR conversions (2 children attend Leesville Middle and 2 attend Leesville Elementary), I would personally like to see Leesville Elementary School considered for conversion back to a traditional calendar.  Since our school population has such a great desire to be on a traditional calendar, and the middle school and high school (both traditional) are physically connected to the elementary school, I think we’re an obvious choice to be a traditional option in our area of the county.  I also think that the new schools opening this year should open on a traditional calendar rather than year-round.  These are my opinions.  I’d like to hear more.

I’ve been receiving so many responses the past 2 weeks regarding this issue via the other NBC-17 blog, so I thought I’d start a new topic here.  Some good information has been shared.  Please post your responses here for all to read.

It sounds like many families decided to “give YR a try” this year, but are planning to opt-out for next year due to issues with the YR schedule that they hadn’t anticipated.  Please share some of your experiences here.

How would you propose WCPSS handle the overcrowding at the traditional schools for 2008-08?

Would converting some of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar be a good idea?  Why or why not?

Financially, what would it entail to convert a school from year-round to traditional?  (I only see cost savings, so I’m curious)

“It sounds like many families decided to “give YR a try” this year, but are planning to opt-out for next year due to issues with the YR schedule that they hadn’t anticipated.“

Lisa, can you share with us some of the unanticipated issues that YR supporters have found?

Last year, at the start of the meeting, Chuck Dulaney said that they will listen to all comments, but the changes to the plan would be limited.

I hope WCPSS has learned from last year that if you don’t give people a say, when it comes to their children, they will find a way to get it.

Hi Cindy:

People don’t always classify themselves as YR supporters or Traditional supporters, so I can’t tell you which comments have actually come from YR supporters.

BUT, I can say that most of the reasons people are second guessing their decision to stay at the MYR schools are centered around what they can/can’t do during track outs.

I hear a lot about the fact that track outs have been very expensive.  During the summer, you have the pool and/or tennis and playdates.  People I’ve heard from say that track out time is a huge “money pit”.  Spending money for movies, lunches out, trips to “Frankies”, “Adventure Landing”, bowling, etc… have really added up.  This is money that they didn’t spend in the summertime.  Several people brought up the fact that they were able to go to the movies once a week during the summer and it was “FREE”. 

Something else I’ve heard a lot about is the availability of friends.  When you’re tracked out, there is only a limited group of children from your school that is tracked out with you.  The majority of your friends at your school are still in school during the day.  Within the group who are actually on your track, some have parents who work so they are in track-out camps or other daycare options.  Some don’t have older siblings on the traditional calendar, so they are using the track-out time to travel out of state. 

It is my impression that people are feeling pressured to “make the most of this time” because it’s essentially their children’s SUMMER VACATION, but they can’t spend the time the same way they would in the summer so they’re frustrated. 

Many people even said that they found themselves allowing their children to play a lot more video games and watch a lot more television than they EVER did in the summer, because without playmates and the pool they don’t have a lot of options once they’ve hit the museums and spent a lot of money.

The other thing I have heard a lot about is trouble with children making the transition back to school after 3 weeks off.  This has been especially hard on the younger kids from what I gather.  Just when they’re comfortably settled into the school routine, they’re out.  They get settled into spending every day with Mom for 3 weeks, and then they have to go back to school.  Transitioning back and forth has been tough for many children.

I can’t personally make a fair assessment of track-out time yet since it’s just our 2nd day of our first “real track out”.  Our first track out took place in July, and my older 2 children were still home for summer vacation so we just fell back into our summer routine which was great.

Yesterday and today we did have a nice time together, but I can certainly appreciate the comments I’ve been hearing from others.

Hi Rich:

I clearly remember Chuck Dulaney starting the meeting out with the same comment about having only “minimal changes” and I instantly felt a pit in my stomach.  I couldn’t believe that they were actually holding these meetings and leading us to believe that they wanted our input, but before we even got to say a word we were essentially being told that what we had to say wasn’t going to matter.

I sincerely HOPE that they value the input this time around, and really utilize it when formulating the final plan.

I have heard from a couple of people that Chuck Dulaney stated that he wanted to make the traditional options “undesirable” so that people would not choose to opt-out of their year-round assignments.  Supposedly this said was during a public meeting last week.  I was told that one parent in attendance even asked him to clarify what he was saying because it sounded so unreal.  Can anyone verify that?

Lisa,
I have to agree about track outs being money pits. Summer movies were 3-4 times(free) a week in the AM and then to the pool in the afternoon, then playdates with friends.  Their is none of that. Zero.  What amazes me is how some parents are “just loving YR” because they can take that trip to Disney on off peak times…ah yes its all about Disney…isn’t that the very same thing these familes chastised all of us who did not want YR?  We were whiners about losing our summer vacations? I find this rather ironic and I have to bite down real hard when I hear this justification. I too agree that the schedule is very disruptive.  I loathe letting my kid play PS2 and usually only allow it when I time it. Only we have so much time now.  The last few days before track out were spending time watching videos combined with another classroom so that the teachers could track out so the other teachers could track in. And by the way they were tracking into an empty classroom!:)  By my calculations if they take 2-3 days every time they track out they are losing about 10/15 days of precious instruction. (note: Rich, if my calculations are a bit off it is because I was using the Trailblazers math) :)So in a nutshell everything you claim in your blog is true, you are not making any of this up. I would also like to add that they have added another Community Engagement meeting at Middle Creek on Nov 27th.  In closing it would seem that having a crowded school is academicly more sound then the disruptive Year Round fiasco. I do not want to be negitive but I think WCPSS/Delany and crew already have their minds made up.If they truly wanted to listen it would have been last Year before they made the biggest blunder since Coke changed their recipe!

Hi Cheryl: 
The comment you mentioned about “making the traditional options undesirable” has actually been verified by several people who attended that meeting.  I don’t know if the official meeting minutes have been posted anywhere, but I couldn’t believe it when I heard that.  I think Rich was the person at the meeting who actually asked Chuck Dulaney to clarify what he had said, because he was shocked to hear it.  It really is sad to think that there appears to be an agenda more important than listening to the families and educating our children.

Hi Cindy:
I also experienced what you did with the last few days before track-out being used to take down classroom materials in order to get the room ready for the next class.  That really is wasted instructional time.  I don’t fault the teachers at all, because they have no choice and HAVE TO move out in a short time.  (not to mention that they didn’t want the MYR conversion in the first place either.) 

My daughter’s class was able to stay in the same room the last time they tracked out so they didn’t have to “move out” then.  My son’s class won’t have to move at all this year, because there aren’t enough classes to even necessitate sharing classrooms.  More proof that we did not NEED the conversion this year.

I’m still looking for opinions.

If WCPSS wins the appeal, they’ll be able to force families into YR schools and fighting for “choice” will be a waste of our time.

BUT, assuming they don’t win the appeal, WHAT CAN BE DONE TO EASE THE OVERCROWDING AT THE TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS / HOW CAN WCPSS ACCOMMODATE THE HUGE DEMAND FOR TRADITIONAL SEATS???

With the exception of the 3 new schools slated to open, WCPSS can NOT open new schools in time for 2008-09. 

I still believe that at least SOME of the MYR schools need to be converted back to traditional to handle the demand for traditional seats. 

Any other ideas???

I received this via e-mail from a teacher, and she asked me to post it on her behalf.

We consider ourselves to be flexible people…...We were willing to give Y-R a try.  After 3 months, we have already found it is not for us.

Every summer we visit a handful of friends and family that live distances of 4 hours or more away.  This summer we did not and could not.  (A weekend does not allow enough time to get to and from the destination.)

I am a traditional calendar teacher, my sons are on TRACK 3.  We will have NO time spent relaxing in p.j.‘s , visiting local sites or going on any type of trip together during track out time.  It is just “another day” for us. Getting up early, making lunch and rushing out the door.
I am having to spend $ not budgeted for track out camps for 2 kids at least 3 times per year.  We have never needed/used a camp other than a week at YMCA camp in the summer “just for fun.“  I have a new budget category now that IS EXPENSIVE!
 
The only time we can travel or visit friends as a family is July 4th week and Christmas….both times we have NEVER traveled and don’t want to have to travel.
I will spend my summer vacation alone.  Not what I intended when I became a teacher and a MOM.
All of our friends are on other TRACKS.  This means 26 weeks out of the year we are on different schedules….I cannot pick up their kids, nor they mine, b/c they are out of school and or out of town…..

People we saw 4 -5 times per week on a traditional calendar, we rarely see.
THe GT program is affected by not having any kids to “group” according to ability/skill because there is only 1 class of students on our track.
Our yearly Sound to Sea trip was CANCELLED b/c of the year-round change.
The tracks create isolation.  Each track is a mini-school with their own set of issues and schedule.

We believe CHOICE is necessary.

Lisa:  I have a son in high school and a son in MYR in middle school.  My husband took a vacation with son #1 this summer and I took one with son #2 in October.  Son #2’s trackout was more expensive - I normally pay $110 - 120 a week for summer camp, I paid $170 a week for the 2 weeks he did go to trackout camp.  I also had this interesting thing happen - got home from our trip visiting family in NY and son #1 would barely speak to us.  Come to find out he was very hurt that his brother got to visit family and cousins and he didn’t.  That was somewhat unexpected from an almost 17 year old.  It is sad how we are divided and myself - no matter what day it is someone is going to school.  I really hate it and the ground down tiredness it makes me feel.  I wish this never happened.

Hi Chris:

I’m sorry to hear about what you’re experiencing.  Your situation is so familiar to so many families, and having our children on different schedules has definitely been harder than we expected.

My kids are a little younger than yours, and we haven’t dared to take the tracked-out kids on a vacation without the other 2.  I can imagine we’d get a similar response.  Sometimes my husband and/or I will take 1 child out for 1-on-1 time thinking it’s a positive thing.  The 3 left at home can’t understand why we wouldn’t want EVERYONE together.  They end up feeling alienated even though we normally order pizza and rent a movie for them to watch together while we’re out.  (it’s not like we leave them locked in their bedrooms at home until we get back)  The 1 child we take out usually feels guilty because his siblings are at home and missing out on his/her fun. 

And that is just for a few HOURS!

This is the middle of week 2 of our first real track-out, and EVERY day my youngest daughter asks if we can take lunch to her brother and sister at middle school.  We’ve actually gone into the Elementary School and walked through the Middle School cafeteria during their lunch times just to give a quick wave.  (“hi guys, we were in the neighborhood and just wanted to say hello”) The funny thing is, when they’re all 4 in school they don’t see each other during the day.  I think it’s just the idea that this is “vacation time” and it should be spent with her siblings.

As always, I’m continuing to hope that some of the MYR schools will be converted back to traditional, and EVERYONE will be given a true choice.

(I did attend Monday’s Community Engagement Meeting, and plan to share my feedback but won’t be back on the computer until the kids are in bed tonight.)

(I’ve moved this post to the most current entry.)

Lisa,

I just found out that WCPSS will be treating the two groups that opted-out of YR differently in reassignment for next year. I believe that is the reason the survey only went out to those who opted-out after the ruling.

Group 1 opted out in February. They will be considered “calendar application” families, similar to magnet applicants. As with magnet and year-round applications, traditional calendar applications are considered permanent applications.

Group 2 opted out in May after the ruling. This group has a one-year assignment at their traditional option and are not considered “applicants”.

While I don’t know the reason the survey was done in the first place, I don’t think WCPSS cares about the supply and demand…just how to better coerce families into year-round.

Just my take.

Hi Allison:

I just had to read your entry twice, because I couldn’t believe this is how they’re planning to handle the people who “opted-out” last year.

WOW!!!!  I am truly shocked.

Talk about an outcry when people hear that.

I saw some of our Hilburn friends this morning, and they’ve just heard some very disturbing news.  Right now Hilburn is an overcrowded traditional calendar school (114% Capacity).  When the new YR Sycamore Creek opens in July, there will be quite a few Hilburn students assigned to Sycamore Creek.  They have been assuming that if they are assigned to Sycamore Creek they will be able to opt-out and stay at Hilburn as their traditional option.  Evidently they’ve been told NO, Hilburn won’t automatically be their traditional option.  It sounds like the great majority of their families (well over 90%) desire a traditional calendar and most who are assigned to Sycamore Creek are planning to opt-out to stay at Hilburn. As you can imagine, they’re EXTREMELY concerned, so I think we’ll be hearing a LOT from the Hilburn families during the next few months.

Back to your post Allison, where did you receive your information? (I’m still having a hard time believing they’d actually do that) If it’s true, I think that is a TERRIBLE way to handle those families who opted out this year.  I’m not calling you a liar, because everything you’ve ever posted has been true.  I’d like to believe that your latest information is NOT accurate, but with the way things have been handled during the past 15 months I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

When will the INSANITY end?

On another note, I had planned to post my impression of Monday Night’s CEM, but I have tried to take a mental break from School Assignment as much as possible this week.  I may get to it later tonight.

Lisa,

From what I have heard, families who are being reassigned into a YR school from a traditional school will not be given their original base as their traditional option. Traditional options are being made inconvenient in the hopes that this will “force” parents into “choosing” the YR school.

Regarding my previous post, I received that information straight from the horse’s mouth, Mr. Chuck Dulaney. If you would like a copy of his email, just let me know.

Allison:

Thanks for your clarification.  Directly from Chuck Dulaney, huh?  I guess that’s “proof” enough.  (Please don’t think I was challenging you—it was just hard to believe)

I have to admit that I’m still SHOCKED that they’d continue to allienate families by handling the situation in such a ridiculous way. 

Top it all off, if they truly don’t allow the families (currently assigned to traditional schools but slated to be reassigned to the 3 new YR schools opening up) who “opt-out” and attend their current traditional schools, that will be even MORE of a mistake.

It sure makes me question the underlying “motive” behind all of these decisions.  It’s certainly NOT the desire to take care of students and families.  After hearing that Mr. Dulaney wants to make the traditional options so undesirable that people won’t opt-out, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at these latest developments either.

I can only continue to HOPE that the School Board doesn’t choose to follow all of Growth Management’s recommendations this time around. 

The School Board members I’ve come to know are really good people who truly want to do the “right thing”....I believe that desire to do the “right thing” will win over the temptation to just follow staff recommendations this year.

There has to be a time to say “ENOUGH of the INSANITY”, and before things get even crazier, NOW can be that time!

I’m sorry that I have taken so long to send out my “recap” of the first “Community Engagement Meeting” that I attended on October 29 at Green Hope High School.  Quite honestly, I left that meeting feeling deflated and frustrated and just needed to get away from “student assignment” for awhile. 

Here’s my quick recap of the meeting.  I expect that the same information will be shared at all 4 meetings, and just the question/answer session will be different.

Chuck Dulaney spoke for about 25 minutes.  The areas he discussed were:

(1)  Current state of the School Population
(2)  Long Range Planning Process
(3)  Student Assignment Process.

During his time at the podium, I personally didn’t learn anything that I hadn’t heard before.  Here are just a few random items that I did take from the meeting to pass along:

Right now, he sees the areas that he needs to address being:

*Assigning students to the 3 new Elementary Schools opening for 2008-09.  They are still planning to open these schools on a year-round calendar.  He didn’t get into detail of where the students will be drawn from.

*Reducing crowding at schools.  Currently there are approximately 70 schools in the system that are over 100% of capacity.  (**right now there are people at several of the MYR schools listed as over 100% capacity who are questioning their numbers.  If there are empty classrooms at any given time, or classes don’t have to move out of their classroom when they track-out to make room for another class, then they are in actuality somewhere UNDER 100% of their available capacity.  Stay tuned because there is some serious number-crunching going on to show the “real” numbers—-and just FYI, it is NOT me who is doing the crunching)

*Improving the distribution of the low-income population.  Currently there are approximately 20 schools in the system that are over 50% low-income.  (Just my personal opinion, but judging by some of Mr. Dulaney’s recent actions and recommendations I believe this is his #1 goal—-much more important to him than reducing the overcrowding)

After Mr. Dulaney spoke, all attendees were invited to come up to the microphone to make comments/ express concerns / ask questions, etc… There was no time limit, which I think may be changed for the next 3 CEM because some of the speakers took a LONG time, and at 9:00 PM several people were still waiting to speak and didn’t get a chance.  Because this meeting took place in Cary, many of the comments pertained to the schools opening up in their area.  Several people asked about converting at least some of the MYR schools back to traditional to reduce the overcrowding at the traditional schools (GREAT IDEA!!!)  but Mr. Dulaney said “MY STAFF WILL NOT MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO CONVERT ANY OF THE MYR SCHOOLS BACK TO TRADITIONAL CALENDAR”.  Having learned what I have during the past year, that is not completely discouraging because I feel that the School Board has finally realized that Mr. Dulaney has his own agenda, and they are questioning him more this time around.  I heard that even as recently as yesterday at the School Board’s work session, Mr. Dulaney mentioned that he felt the MYR conversions were a SUCCESS (???????) and one School Board member stood up to him and reminded him that he had to consider the fact that there are now severely overcrowded traditional schools and a great deal of available capacity at YR schools.  I really do hope they listen to the families this time around and don’t rely on Mr. Dulaney’s recommendations as “gospel” like they did last year.  Once the judge’s ruling came back in the Spring, it appeared that several of the School Board Members had realized that the MYR conversions were NOT the answer, but at that point it was too late.

During the Q/A session at the CEM, there were a few speakers who were able to engage Mr. Dulaney in meaningful dialogue.  This was great to a point, but not many of the conversations were able to be concluded with a solid answer.  Unfortunately, there were some very important questions asked that should have been answered that didn’t get answered.  It appeared that if Mr. Dulaney didn’t have an acceptable answer OR he felt backed into an corner OR the speaker made an observation that Mr. Dulaney couldn’t respond to without admitting that he had done something “wrong”, he just responded with silence and a stare, so that the speaker would eventually feel uncomfortable and just walk away from the microphone without getting a response.

(I will have to say that although I don’t agree with 95% of what Chuck Dulaney has done during the past year, it took a lot of courage to stand up in front of that group of angry and concerned parents, so I have to give him credit for doing so.  I just wish he would realize that in any situation there are LOTS of solutions and there is more than 1 way to “do it right”)

Thanks for all of the e-mails and comments.  PLEASE post your opinions and stories here so that others can hear about what is going on around the county too.

The statements by Chuck Dulaney regarding the selection of traditional calendar schools being designed to minimize enrollment and not be too appealing will be recording in BAC 8 minutes.  This is not a case of one person taking a statement out of context.

Hey, hey, hey! Another place to play. (Fat Albert voice)

Looking forward to this blog.  Peace out.

Lisa B - a very nice recap of the meeting.  You take better notes than I.  However, I did keep track of the number of times Chuck mentioned needing money for future schools - 12. 

After the meeting a talked to a few of the folks.  Man o’man, we need a group of “real” people to get together and write a “real” history of what’s been going on in our schools for the last 12 years.  The newcomers for no better word are “clueless” about what is happening in our system.  And they don’t understand why the School Board will not listen to them. 

There is a major learning curve to be dealt with.

I attended the November 15 meeting at Sanderson High School.  Although I did provide a recap to most of the Leesville families who have been involved in the working to get Leesville Elementary School back onto a traditional calendar, I wanted to just give a quick update here as well for those who have been e-mailing and asking me about what went on.
Chuck Dulaney’s presentation was essentially identical to what he presented at Green Hope.  The Q/A session was run the same way, and although he didn’t have a time limit on the speakers he did encourage them to be courteous of others who were waiting for a turn.  The majority of the speakers in attendance were from Leesville and Hilburn, which makes sense given the location of Sanderson High School.  Both Leesville and Hilburn stand to lose the most students to the opening of Sycamore Creek Elementary School next summer too.
Once again, the emphasis from the speakers (myself included) was on providing more traditional seats to help reduce the overcrowding at the traditional schools AND to meet the great demand for a traditional calendar in Wake County.  We not only spoke about converting Leesville Elementary School back to a traditional calendar, we stressed the fact that opening the 3 new schools on a traditional calendar would help the overcrowding situation that we are currently experiencing in the WCPSS.  The Hilburn families were interested in knowing which nodes will be assigned to Sycamore Creek and are also very concerned (justifiably so) about the current overcrowding at their school.  Once again, Chuck Dulaney said that he will recommend that the 3 new schools still open on the year-round calendar AND his department will not recommend converting any of the MYR schools back to a traditional calendar. 
Fortunately for those of us who still believe that there MUST be more traditional seats in the system next year, the School Board has the final say after they receive the recommendations from Growth Management.  I do believe that several of the School Board members are seeing the reality of the situation in our schools.  I also believe that they have been listening to the families who were adversely affected by the MYR conversions this year.  Lately I’ve been called a fool for believing that the School Board will actually come around and listen to what the families have been asking for.  BUT, I truly do feel that they realize what a mistake the MYR conversions were, and they will now work to FIX the mess instead of continuing down the year-round path. 
I have never said that I thought year-round schools were bad.  It is just that the year-round calendar doesn’t work for my family because I have 2 at a traditional middle school and 2 at a year-round elementary school.  Voluntary year-round has worked well in the past in Wake County, and I know many families who love the year-round schedule.  Although we’ve been making the best of the situation, after 5 months I still haven’t found anything that I would consider “better than expected” with the schedule.  I sincerely hope that all of my children can be back on the same schedule next year at the schools we know and love.
Tomorrow night (Tuesday November 27) is the last of the 4 Community Engagement Meetings.  It will be held at Middle Creek High School in Apex from 7:00-9:00 PM. 
The draft assignment plan is expected to be released on December 7, and Chuck Dulaney has said that he will attempt to have all of his recommended traditional options listed as well.  I know that many of you have expressed concern because you heard that the traditional options will be made “unappealing to prevent opt-outs”, but we’ll just have to see what comes out December 7.  I’m not expecting a miracle, but at least I have faith that the School Board will do what is right for the families this time.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break, and thanks for staying involved!

I miss YR! Day 1 of track out, each kid prepares their list of events to do. We put our list together and select 2 events per week (when I worked full time, we did both on the same day). We always have a community event. The funding…yes it is expensive if you choose Frankie’s, Chuck E Cheese, etc. We are your average middle class family so funding comes from the loose change that has been deposited since last track out. Day 2, sort and roll up the money to figure out what we can spend. So now the kids have learned a few skills, younger kids sorting and coin identification and the older kids calculating and beginning budgeting to figure out what you can do. Our list usually consist of feed ducks at Lake Lynn, running tag through Laurel Hills Castle park, fishing at Lake Lynn or Umstead, biking/hiking through Umstead, family game day, Museums etc. for all of these my ‘expense’ is a picnic lunch. PS We even do this in the summer once the pool has lost it’s luster! Some ‘outside’ expenses are we look outside of our home within the community to see what we could do. The local police station and fire station don’t mind if you bring baked goods by and tour the facility. Yes there has been an emergency and we stepped aside. My kids still talk about that. Senior Citizen centers love paper flowers or drawings. We go to the indoor pool for some of our favorite games and lap time for me. For expenses, yes some are done in the summer track out as well we will go to the movies, rent movies, Frankie’s BUT it all depends on the budget and the kids have to figure that out. I had one child transition out of YR this year and it took him 4-5 weeks to wake up from his summer slumber. I have also noticed the increase in review time (YR 1 to 2 days, T 4 weeks and I suspect longer). It now makes sense to me that the Traditional kids in our neighborhood had an AG project in 5th grade that my son’s class did in class in 4th grade. If you gain 3 weeks every year (I suspect it is more)as a YR, when do you have a full year advantage on a same caliber student with the similiar resources at a Traditional school…

As for now, I have 3 kids on 3 different schedules. I enjoy the 1 to 1 time I get with each of them since they are very different in ages and interest. Some days I have 2 and 2 days this month I had all 3. I look forward to my middle child’s December track out, we bake with out the rush, wrap presents and have the best time. Not sure who we will bake for this year, we may just pick the custodian and office staff at the schools! We will keep enjoying what we see as the hidden benefits.

Last note, 2000 bond there was supposed to be 8 schools added by 2004 with an YR elementary and YR middle school along the US70 corridor. The elementary school got here 2 years ago and the middle school is still MIA. The school board isn’t in favor of YR, but now they feel pressured to get the seats. I think everyone should have a choice to choose YR or not, but let’s make sure that we have a YR choice for those that would like it. For us Lisa, the YR middle is 40 minutes away with no other bus stops. In our area, the private schools are filling up fast thus the drop in attendance? Although, Leesville Elementay didn’t loose that many families.

Hi Beth:

Thanks for your response.  I enjoy reading all kinds of different opinions, and I’m glad that YR works so well for your family.

We certainly haven’t been sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves just wasting the time away.  We have been making the best of the situation, because it’s our reality.  As much as I stress to my kids that YR is a positive thing, they still talked about missing their brother and sister EVERY DAY during track-out.  We intentionally had our kids very close in age, and fortunately they do share the same interests and really enjoy being together.  (fingers crossed that this continues)

If I felt that the YR calendar was academically superior to the traditional calendar, I’m sure I’d give the YR calendar more weight in my decision.  I personally don’t believe it is.  During the past year I’ve seen so many studies that completely contradict each other, and nothing is conclusive either way.  I just think school calendar should be a family choice, and the change should not be forced on anyone.  I have many friends (and even one of my sisters) who LOVE the YR calendar, and I think that’s great.  It’s just that the traditional calendar fits our family’s lifestyle and activities much more closely.

As far as Leesville Elementary School losing families, no we didn’t lose many.  For various reasons, not many opted for Stough in February.  THEN, when the consent letters were sent out and there was no traditional option listed, we didn’t want to leave the school we knew and loved and didn’t want to leave for an “unknown”. 

Regarding the bonds, I believe things have gotten out of hand and the accountability just hasn’t seemed to be there.  I would like to see a very simple bond that says “We need $xxx to build xxx (number of) schools during the next XX years, and there will be XX school in the XX area built in XX year, XX school built in XX area built in XX year, etc…“  It needs to be specific and measurable and CLOSELY FOLLOWED.  Even with the way the “sneaky” way that the bond package was sold last fall, I’d definitely support a new bond because we NEED MORE SCHOOLS. 

If nothing else, things will be very interesting after the draft plan is released next week.

Thanks again for your comments, and have a great week!

I’m not a parent, but I do have a suggestion going forward… How about requiring proportionate mixed-income housing prices in new residential developments?...say 20% Upper income/60% Middle Income/20% Lower Income. 

I went to high school in Lexington, KY and they bused in inner-city kids out to the other schools -which understandably created student frustration as these kids had to be on the bus an hour earlier in the morning(sometimes more)- when their local school was more convenient.

Diversity is wonderful but I personally would hate not having the choice by being a Minority and considered a statistic - and lets not forget our own days of youth where the majority of students electively broke into their own socio-economic & racial clique’s.

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I was at the convention. It was overwhelminingly Florida YRs 80%+. The national group has been adroitly hijacked by Florida. GO FLORIDA YRs!!!