We're finished with all our state-required hours for the 2010-2011 school year! We could sit around until JULY (or later, if we wanted a summer break!) and do NOTHING academic whatsoever. Oh, yeahhhh.
Meanwhile, our public school has to do SIX makeup days and one more day for every two missed hereafter. Can I just say that seat time requirements are silly? But I do vaguely understand the rationale behind them. Certainly you can't teach me all I need to know in second grade in three hours per year. So, some committee somewhere fuddles around and thinks of a nice round number - 174! - and requires schools to do that.
Really, I'm befuddled at the whole process. I don't know which committee meets or what their procedures are. It seems to me, however, when we began homeschooling that 1,000 hours seemed a heavy requirement for a small child. Now, progressing further, 1,000 hours doesn't seem to cover all that needs to be done in a given year. I'm sure the amount of time I feel necesssary will increase the longer I homeschool. But if I were to begin homeschooling Rose in kindergarten? I hardly imagine myself working with her for five or six hours each day on solid academics.
I see no differentiation in the DESE guidelines between first and 12th graders in terms of the number of hours required in a school year. But I DO see that it looks as though there is a four-day instead of five-day option. Wonder why no one has proposed doing that here? Would save a boodle on transportation costs, though the school day would be long and children who miss a day of school are really missing a day and a quarter (right? I'd think).
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Look Out, Dad!!
My father is the purple dot above the blue weather station. He's juuust outside Milton's evacuation zone. Well! My brother and I jus...
Congrats on finishing the year out, we have 70 more days to go ~sigh~ but like you I have some issues with the "requirement" that the states we live in give us! Still holding on to controlling the homeschoolers...but some need the requirement or they would never do school with their kids! Guess you should get to planning out your next year lol...Blessings!!!
ReplyDeleteOne of the school districts here recently went to a 4 day week, and it caused a HUGE ruckus. Single-parent families and both-parents-work families objected pretty strenuously. Our local YMCA, children's museum, and other community programm-y places are crazy busy on Fridays.
ReplyDeleteI think the school district is all messed up, i heard today (don't know if this is accurate) that after 7 (or maybe 8) missed school days, they will start doing half days at the end of the semester. That's what i'm hearing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, i know that we only go to school Monday and Tuesday, the week of spring break, because parents are complaining about vacation plans and will not care if there is school or not, they will just leave.
Sounds to me like parents are getting angry. As for me, i think the school should have build in snow days. I mean, they didn't even have one snow day built it, they never do. I think the big cheese oughta look into that ....