February 6, 2008

A Four Day School Week?



We have been in Virginia for eight weeks now. Since the boys have been enrolled in the Commonwealth of Virginia's school system, they have only attended school four days per week! The first two weeks there was no school because of winter break. The other six weeks have gone as follows:


  • Week of Jan. 1st: They started back to school on Wednesday, Jan. 2nd which made for a 3 day school week
  • Week of Jan. 7th: Off one day for "teacher work day" = 4 day school week
  • Week of Jan. 14: Off one day for a "snow day" = 4 day school week
  • Week of Jan. 21: Off for Martin Luther King, Jr. day = 4 day school week
  • Week of Jan. 28th: Off one day for "inclement weather" = 4 day school week
  • Week of Feb. 4th: Off one day for "parent/teacher conferences" = 4 day school week
  • Week of Feb 11th: Will be off one day because they haven't used all of their snow days = 4 day school week
  • Week of Feb. 18th: Will be off for President's Day = 4 day school week
  • Week of Feb. 25th: Will only go 4 1/2 days because one day is early dismissal because? = essentially a 4 day school week


Now, assuming there are no more "snow days" or inclement weather days" the week of March 3rd, they will finally have their very first full (5 day) week of school in Virginia. Isn't that incredible? They will have attended school here for 2 months before getting a full week of instruction. I just can't get over that! Also, in South Carolina, they went to school from 8am - 2:30pm. Here they go from 7:55 - 2:05. In SC they never got out of school for parent/teacher conferences, they did it after school hours. There was no 2 hour early dismissals. And, instead of taking the unused snow days randomly, they were used at the end of the year to get out a few days early.

As you can tell, I'm still adjusting to life in VA, especiallly school life. It's a big change to say the least. I did meet with the boys' teachers today though for our conferences. I received a good report from all of them. They had nothing but good things to report. Plus, we also ironed out Bubby's new IEP, which I am much more pleased with than the one he had in SC. So, there are definitely positives to the VA school system.....attendance just isn't one of them.

P.S. -- Please overlook any misspelled words. Bloggers spell checker isn't working for some reason!

4 comments:

  1. But only for two weeks because then we have a 3 day week and then spring break..

    then a 4 day week...

    then we have one full week the week of 4/7 and then 2 more 4 day weeks...

    but know that we go all of May with only one day off... :D

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  2. We never had it that good when I taught in VA. We did all the teacher workday stuff after school too.

    I lived in Virginia Beach and we had a really big snow one year and then an ice storm over it and the transportation crew couldn't take care of it, had never seen anything like that, so we were out an entire week until the stuff could melt. Then we had a few more snow days here and there and the school calendar didn't have a such thing as a snow day in it so we had to go to school on Saturdays for six weeks to make it up.

    Six day school weeks really suck.

    At least the kids are getting eased into the all week school routine after the move.

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  3. Anonymous1:41 PM

    I found your blog via Blog Explosion :).

    I live in MS so we don't really have "snow days" lol. My kids get the typical holidays and occasional teacher work days. Usually we only have parent/teacher conferences if a child isn't doing well in school.

    I am glad you are getting settled in VA. I always hate moving. But now that we've bought our own place hopefully, we won't have to do that again lol.

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  4. Where we live in northern BC (Canada) our kids only go to school Monday to Thurs regularly but each day is longer (8:30-3:30). I don't think it's ideal but the school board needed to balance their budget and this was the result...sigh.

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