Posts by Susan James

rowdypanther12 said:The company doesn't need to lay off half the workforce. Honestly, if they just let go of 20% of the mathematicians 😁 and 15% of the IT staff, plus maybe a few linguists, the whole system would probably collapse

Honestly, I think people are overcomplicating things. They don't need to go through the whole ordeal of quitting their jobs just to get some breathing room. Taking medical leave is a perfectly valid option—it’s much easier than walking away from a career entirely. 😬

nimblelynx7 said:It’ll be interesting to see if even half of these people actually follow through on their resignation threats.

My take? In the end, there won't be any actual change—just a lot of collective whining before business continues as usual.

Exactly.
I honestly think you have to be either a total optimist or just pretty bad at tech to agree to work such a fragmented schedule in a standard K-12 school setting (think 16 hours spread across 8 grades with small class sizes) and then wait until 3:00 PM just to get a full load. Even then, you might only find a few interested students who aren't already exhausted from their morning classes to listen to elective computer science long enough for you to hit your required hours—especially for the kind of pay we're talking about.
So, you're looking at working roughly 7:45 AM to 5:00 PM, dealing with constant noise, crowds of kids, and a mountain of parents who expect their children to become master programmers overnight... all for what, a few extra bucks? 🤔
Right now, finding a computer science teacher is nearly impossible, yet people will jump at the chance for a tiny 4% raise even if it means doubling their workload. 🤣
A huge number of people choose school jobs specifically because of the lighter schedules, giving them time to be with their own kids or run side businesses like tutoring or tour guiding.

Some schools spend weeks—literally weeks!—searching for math teachers.
Now they're increasing math hours (which means they need even more staff), along with mandatory remedial sessions. Who is going to step in to cover for that person when they go on medical leave or finally hand in their resignation?
Currently, they're patching things over with teachers from the afternoon shift or using unqualified substitutes, but who is going to fill the gap when everyone is stuck in one shift and carrying 120% of a full teaching load?

northerntiger9 said:Nobody seems to be addressing the fact that you simply cannot fix a bad staff. As long as they show up just to do the absolute bare minimum—if that—you can’t exactly swap them out for people who actually take pride in their work. To be clear: spending all day in a classroom with people like that is a disaster on every level. They'll mentally drain the kids, and by the time students have slogged through a 9 or 10-hour school day, they won't have any energy left for extracurriculars, tutoring, or anything else. It creates massive disparities between schools depending on how lucky you get with the district's hiring—and in an all-day school setting, those gaps become impossible to ignore.

And then you listen to that politician publicly claiming that kids will handle everything at school and won't need to do anything at home anymore. He claims it'll bridge the social gap because every child will finally have equal opportunities.

Sure, maybe they'll be "equal" within the same classroom or perhaps the same school... though, if I had my way, I suspect we'll see a mountain of doctor's notes handed in to avoid certain classes.
A bad math teacher is still a bad math teacher, whether they teach four hours or five hours a week. The damage they do during regular school hours is only going to carry over into the "enriched" curriculum.

Bryan Wells11 said:

What an absolute load of nonsense. Total disgrace.

This guy clearly hasn't the slightest clue about how schools actually function, the reality of modern life, or the actual state of our American education system—not to mention the struggles American families face today. Then again, he’s just a retired vet and part of that privileged inner circle, so I guess expectations should be low. But the worst part? Right out of the gate, he basically said public hearings shouldn't have even happened. He claimed they'd look at "constructive" feedback while dismissing anything negative as just "noted." Give me a break, Mr. Secretary. You can't just ignore the input of over 900 teachers, professors, parents, and psychologists—basically every stakeholder in the American school system—just because they don't fit your narrative. Instead, we get these bureaucratic fairy tales and partisan propaganda used to brush aside expert opinion. It seems the goal was to force this through without any real questions being asked. Honestly, it feels like they wanted to implement a very specific, very questionable way of thinking by sheer force. I still have no idea who the architects of this monstrous experiment even are.

I find it absolutely wild that he thinks he doesn't need anyone's permission to run an experiment like this.
He basically said something like:
legally, any experimental program introduced into schools isn't required to undergo a public hearing, so it can just be rolled out in selected schools...

This is just peak arrogance.🙏
(around the 5-minute mark)

So, the plan is to just pick a few schools, dump a new curriculum on them, test the kids for four years, and if it works, roll it out nationwide.
And if it fails? Well, nobody is held accountable.
What criteria is he using to choose those specific schools?
Is there a control group? What are the intended outcomes? How do they measure success in these pilot schools, and what does the student sample actually look like?
Are they going to measure success based on how many parents are smiling?

I made it to the 20-minute mark, but I had to stop; I couldn't take any more.
It's just pure demagoguery.
Anyone who has actually read the document can see that what he's rambling about applies to elementary levels, whereas for older students, the schedule is significantly longer. Kids will be stuck at school until 5 PM without any extracurriculars, and then they won't get home until 7 or 8 PM.
Their social lives will be non-existent.

Of course, he's counting on the fact that the average parent won't read the full document. Plus, he's banking on the idea that most parents just want their kids to finish everything at school so there's no homework left for the child—or the parent—to deal with at home. All this while dealing with the existing curriculum and the current teaching methods (if you can even call it teaching anymore, since it’s mostly just "flip through the textbook").

ambereagle88 said:The former Secretary wouldn't be proud unless they were writing on tablets. 😁

It’s a great idea. Just like the idea of submitting this during the advisory session. 👍

Personally, I'd happily hand over some tablets to help get this done. 🙏

Jose Wells3 said:So, I asked the kids if they wanted to tackle this topic for their school assignment, and now I’m busy condensing part of the document to give them as reading material. The goal? To make sure their commentary actually makes sense when they sit down to write.

They did ask, though—can they just post their thoughts in the comments section over at 🤣

😍

Oh man, that is such a cool idea!
Honestly, even the former Secretary of Education would be proud—this is a real life lesson right here.
Active community engagement 🎉🎉🎉

Bravo!
(This is honestly a fantastic idea. It would be amazing if all the HJ teachers let their students weigh in on this... or maybe even have them write a comparison between our school today and what it looks like in the future, maybe comparing us to places like Harvard or schools in Canada 😍)
Who knows, there might actually be some kids out there who find this really engaging 🤔

Bryan Wells11 said:The threat of mandatory group study sessions every single day is looming over us. It’s like you aren't even allowed to go home. Personally, I’d choose being at home, doing things my way, over spending the rest of my afternoon stuck with the entire class. Especially when that includes the group that spends their time undermining everything, sabotaging lessons, acting out just to get attention, or bullying other kids—it's a nightmare. But I guess the program will be "fair" and "equal" for everyone, just like it always is in our broken American education system: we all have to bend to the rules, especially the good, quiet, well-behaved kids, just so they don't have to deal with the bullies or the troublemakers.

Back in middle school, I used to study out loud while pacing around my room. For geography, I’d tape a map to my closet and pretend I was standing at the front of the classroom answering questions. I studied with music playing, sitting on my bed, using a massive pile of highlighters to mark things up. I just loved having music in my room and drawing constantly; my creativity really exploded during 7th and 8th grade, and it was a huge source of joy for me. So, I honestly don't understand what developmental psychologists concluded when they decided that forced socialization, all day, every day, is somehow beneficial for young teenagers, or how this is supposed to improve their cognitive performance. Ever since the pandemic, we've seen a surge in school phobias, anxiety, and self-harm among students during subject classes. How is this policy going to impact those trends?

this is just a working group

where exactly do you see psychologists involved?

jadetinker85 said:👎 👎 Look, if you’ve already climbed all the way up to a Cabinet position, you might as well face the criticism head-on and actually fix the problem. You can't just sweep this under the rug.

What kind of solution are we talking about? She clearly states that her sole focus is STEM education—nothing else matters to her. That’s why she was appointed to this position; the Associated Press reported that after several protests, leadership decided people were basically waiting at bus stops just hoping their kids would finally get computer science classes in school.

Just look at her latest article regarding full-day schooling. Her big concern is whether our kids will spend their time learning practical skills like sewing, especially when they'll only get one hour of computer science.
When people try to explain the benefits of hands-on crafts and how much they help child development, she just doubles down on screens and how vital it is for kids to be staring at monitors all day.
The fact that kids will be sitting in classrooms until five in the afternoon doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Fuchs actually took it a step further. In a bit of political maneuvering consistent with her party's platform (even though she wasn't officially affiliated), she's trying to convince everyone that school will end by 2:00 PM, giving them plenty of time for extracurriculars, while somehow promising they'll still learn everything and finish all their homework.

ambereagle88 said:And it might not even be a natural death; it looks more like a violent one. So many children enroll in arts schools.
My child's music teacher isn't even close to home; we travel to a specific instructor because she is truly talented, regardless of the distance. Now, she'd be expected to spend half her day at school forcing some kind of "creativity," while presumably forgetting all about her instrument...🙄

The reason I say it won't be a natural death is because this whole project was originally designed to roll out to just 50 experimental schools over the next four years before hitting the rest. It’ll slowly phase out in those pilot schools, and then basically face an abrupt end everywhere else in America if this experiment actually goes through.

But of course, the pundits will claim that full-day schooling works perfectly in other Western nations, the European Union, or Canada... and that we should all be striving for that. 🙄
Forget the arts; we just need to push STEM. 🧐
If there isn't enough room in the budget for specialized art teachers, they can always afford to hire more Social Studies and History instructors, theologians for religious studies, or maybe a few extra computer science teachers.

We shouldn't forget that this full-day school initiative is really just the brainchild of the former Secretary of Education (the current one is just using it for campaign purposes)... and from the very first announcement, staff at arts academies have been terrified about their future. They're worried about how they'll work and what their lives will look like—if they're working until 7 or 8 PM while their own kids are sitting in school in the morning, when will they actually see them?
I have a colleague whose entire family has worked in music education for generations, and they are struggling immensely. A huge number of kids burned out during the pandemic (partly due to the stress of learning in outdated buildings), and this change will only exacerbate that burnout... or rather, people will just stop enrolling altogether.

Back in 2020, when they started reopening schools for the younger grades, people were flooding the Secretary's Facebook page with comments about music schools (where lessons are one-on-one, meaning social distancing is easy and classes could have easily continued). Not only did she ignore those messages, but she actually deleted them—in a way where she hides the comment so others don't see it, even though you might not realize it's gone because it still appears on your screen. Simply put, she doesn't care; she just looks at her screen and moves on.

John Palmer9 said:Well, I guess it’s all laid out there. For instance, it mentions how parents get a message on Friday at the end of the week detailing what the kids worked on and what’s coming up next."

It’s like getting a notification that they're covering circular motion in physics next week, so I can sit my little princess down and give her a full lecture on it. She’ll probably just look at me like, "Wow, Grandpa is so smart." Then, when a notice comes through saying they're studying the history of the Comintern, I guess I'll just start preaching the glories of the Comintern right then and there.

😕
😕
😕

So, are they basically sending assignments home so parents can tutor their kids ahead of time?
If that's the case, what is the point of school anymore?

ambereagle88 said:I can't quite wrap my head around how these extracurricular activities are actually supposed to work. From what I gather, the school might just sign a contract with an outside organization to run their own programs on campus. So, if they strike a deal with a local basketball club or a chess academy, that’s what you get at the school. But what about kids enrolled in music school? They’d be stuck taking classes exclusively in the late afternoon or even evening. What is the actual plan for the music and dance academies, which also fall under the Department of Education? How are they expected to schedule lessons for everyone strictly during after-school hours? Kids would practically have to quit music altogether because the school only offers tiny little ensembles, and by the time they finish, there's no time left to make it to their actual music lessons and still find time to practice.

As for those comments suggesting "we wouldn't be doing this if Europe didn't recommend it," I honestly can't help but laugh. Over the last thirty years, we've implemented all sorts of systems just because someone "in Europe" thought it was a good idea, and we've completely botched it because nobody bothered to consider our own traditions, culture, or technical capabilities. Every once in a while, some project floats over from Europe—across every single sector—that exists primarily so the people running it can line their pockets and claim a "success story." Naturally, these types of projects wouldn't fly in Finland or Belgium, so they're sold to us, to people who jump at anything labeled "European." Lately, even our own experts have been doing the same thing, trying to sell half-baked ideas to Canada, Mexico, Mexico, and Albania.

If you look at the feedback on the e-consultation forums, people working in music schools are asking the exact same question: when are they actually going to be able to teach?

Since the elective after-school activities are scheduled for after 5:00 PM...
first of all, following the A2 program, even starting from 1st through 4th grade, they might be able to make it to music school around 2:30 or 3:00 PM (assuming they don't opt for the B programs at school, like Fuchs mentioned on your thread). But by 5th and 6th grade, and especially in 7th and 8th, it won't be possible before 5:00 PM.
(When you look at the regular schedule for mandatory subjects in both A1 and A2 programs—with two extra hours added every day—there is absolutely no way everything finishes before 4:30 PM.)
Even if the music school rents space within the elementary school or isn't located right next door, the kids will be limited to maybe one or two hours for both theory and instrument instruction. And they really should include time for practicing the instrument too. I guess they expect them to practice at 10:00 PM just to keep the neighbors happy! 😬

It seems like there’s no real plan for the arts schools. It feels like the expectation is for them to just die out naturally so the government can cut down on budget spending.
Then they can use that money to pay theologians and IT specialists instead.

northerntiger9 said:Until they address the issue of incompetent staff—which has been systematically ruining entire generations for years—all-day schooling is just going to cause more harm than good. Kids will just endure whatever they have to at school, then head off to some more motivated, sensible environment if they actually have the drive. Same goes for the lack of a plan to handle disruptive students; until the classroom isn't poisoned by an atmosphere that’s unmotivating and unproductive for the kids who actually want to learn, all-day schooling won't achieve anything—if anything, it'll be worse.

On another note... one thing doesn't make sense to me. Why is everyone complaining about computer science being cut? Right now, it’s only required for 5th and 6th graders for two hours a week—under the new plan, it would be required for all eight grades for one hour a week. That’s double the time. I’m not even counting electives; anyone who wants deeper knowledge can just sign up for extracurriculars, which could focus on things like robotics, programming, or digital tools for photo/video editing. For the basics that every kid needs to grasp, one hour a week across all grades sounds perfectly reasonable. The real bottleneck remains the quality of the faculty.

To be fair, some people in education take the job because the hours are relatively short, leaving them free to do tutoring or other side gigs. I actually know a few teachers who are pretty open about that.
Those sensationalist headlines claiming that after full-day schooling, tutoring won't be necessary (because everything will be covered in those two extra hours) are actually designed to ensure that any extra work after school becomes impossible, especially alongside those tiny teacher raises.
So, while it's true teachers might not (yet) be doing tutoring during their off-hours, the real question is: who is going to help these kids catch up?

I'll say it again: if you haven't had a kid in third grade stuck in after-school care, you have no idea how much of a nightmare that extra instruction can be. And don't even get me started on subject-specific tutoring, especially since after-school programs used to include breaks—breaks during recess or downtime for those who didn't participate in extra sessions.
Now, everything is becoming mandatory for everyone.
Just sitting in a chair. Endless hours of staring at nothing.
No moving around.
No getting outside for a breath of fresh air or some sunlight during the winter months.

People talk about how not all kids go to sports (and they shouldn't have to), but you have to consider that most elementary schools are neighborhood-based. Walking home is a form of movement that helps kids reset their concentration for studying, which is way more important than sitting in a classroom until late afternoon.
Sometimes kids just need to walk to the corner store, but the schools lock the doors and won't let them out.
They aren't allowed out even during free periods (not by choice).

northerntiger9 said:Until they address the issue of incompetent staff—which has been systematically ruining entire generations for years—all-day schooling is just going to cause more harm than good. Kids will just endure whatever they have to at school, then head off to some more motivated, sensible environment if they actually have the drive. Same goes for the lack of a plan to handle disruptive students; until the classroom isn't poisoned by an atmosphere that’s unmotivating and unproductive for the kids who actually want to learn, all-day schooling won't achieve anything—if anything, it'll be worse.

On another note... one thing doesn't make sense to me. Why is everyone complaining about computer science being cut? Right now, it’s only required for 5th and 6th graders for two hours a week—under the new plan, it would be required for all eight grades for one hour a week. That’s double the time. I’m not even counting electives; anyone who wants deeper knowledge can just sign up for extracurriculars, which could focus on things like robotics, programming, or digital tools for photo/video editing. For the basics that every kid needs to grasp, one hour a week across all grades sounds perfectly reasonable. The real bottleneck remains the quality of the faculty.

It's because computer science, which was an elective for 1st through 4th grade, was treated as "equal" to Religion classes. Now, Religion (or its philosophical equivalent) will be mandatory, along with computer science—except Religion will be two hours a week, and computer science will be one.

Any parent with a shred of common sense can see how ridiculous it is to blow money on useless gadgets when we can barely afford to pay an actual computer science teacher. On the flip side, we have plenty of funding for theology instructors and those teaching subjects that don't seem to have much practical application—not to mention the constant push to hire more staff for those roles. Meanwhile, there’s a real shortage of tech specialists in the job market. And honestly, that gap is only going to widen because some schools won't offer competitive enough hourly rates to attract them. Even if they did, the classes needed to fill those slots would likely be scheduled late in the afternoon. That means any decent IT professional would end up with a totally fragmented schedule, making their workday pretty much a mess compared to a standard 9-to-5.

John Palmer9 said:The way they handle the first four grades over in Norway—getting parents more involved like this—it seems like a pretty solid idea, I guess.

6yka.com/skola-u-norveskoj-prvaci-imaju-jedan-domaci-nedeljno-pet-predmeta-a-roditelji-svakog-petka-dobijaju-izvestaj

Why exactly is that such a good idea? Could you explain a bit more instead of just dropping links?

In America, we have digital gradebooks that parents check multiple times a day (I know some people who basically just sit there hitting refresh). There are also apps that send notifications from the portal because if you have more than one kid in school, logging in over and over again can be a real pain.
What exactly would teachers be expected to send home to parents on a Friday afternoon? 🤔

Mark Walker4 said:It isn't impossible, just totally unrealistic. Facebook claims they have $2 billion lined up, but with 619 schools needing upgrades or total rebuilds, you're looking at an average of over $3.2 million per school—and that doesn't even touch the other massive costs tied to a project this size.

In Washington, D.C., they’ve renovated five elementary schools over the last three years. A ton of money was poured into those projects—especially since some of them are historic landmarks, which I suspect makes any kind of expansion pretty much off the table.
If those renovations were done thoroughly—which they likely were—then there shouldn't be any room left for adding more space, meaning they should actually be ready to roll out full-day programs. They ought to have all the necessary classrooms ready for 2028... unless, of course, they don't. 🤔

Quote:>

Wildflower says: That’s a great point. My daughter over in Canada is in school from 8:30 until 3:00. It isn't an issue at all that she's there for a long stretch because the curriculum is built around hands-on projects rather than just sitting around listening to lectures. They get two 15-minute snack breaks and an hour for lunch—they usually finish eating in about 25 minutes and spend the rest of the time playing outside. It honestly blows my mind that when people talk about this reform, their main gripe is how long the school day lasts. They aren't even focusing on the actual changes to the curriculum or the teaching methods that we should be expecting in a modern society by 2023. It’s actually pretty scary to see them cutting back on computer science hours, especially since the current program is already so outdated. 🤦

In the US, seventh and eighth graders often take a bunch of electives—like religion, tech, or foreign languages—and stay for extra sessions, sometimes until 2:00 or even 3:00 PM. Their classes start at 8:00, and most middle schools don't even provide lunch.
Now, all these electives might become mandatory, they'll have lunch provided (though nobody knows where!), and then seventh and eighth graders will still have to deal with history and math until 3:00 PM. It just doesn't seem right.

As for what kids do at school versus what they do at home, I can only say 🤣>
that currently, they work on projects at school but end up studying at home. Plus, the tests are designed to check if they memorized the textbook, rather than testing what they actually learned through those projects...

Sarah Hall53 said:The vet clearly didn't bother reading the paperwork. So, let me just pull the info directly from the document for you.

In this experimental setup, the core educational work within the A1 and A2 programs involves direct instruction that all students participate in. It's actually mandatory for them—it’s tracked through their daily, weekly, and yearly school hours. In the A1 program, you mostly see standard teaching methods, whereas the A2 program focuses more on student support and enrichment activities.

Then there's the extracurricular activity programs (B1 and B2), which are part of the school curriculum too, but they're elective, so only some students end up taking them.

>
Quote:>

In an all-day school model, the direct instructional work—carried out via the full-time program (A1) and the support/enrichment program (A2)—is organized and held during regular school hours. Generally, the mandatory school day runs from about 8:00 AM to 2:15/3:00 PM for elementary levels, and roughly 8:00 AM to 3:30/4:00 PM for subject-based middle or high school settings. This total required school time is split up between classes, support sessions, enrichment, lunch, and breaks for both students and teachers.

The vet is clearly a huge Republican partisan.

That’s some top-tier propaganda and demagoguery right there, especially coming from a major network like CNN (and let's be honest, they aren't even a public broadcaster)

I honestly don't know how he can show his face, especially when you see how many people actually bothered to read the document and join the debate. I was just Googling some of the names involved—it's not just random school teachers either; some of them are even textbook authors, at least according to what my search shows 🙏)

He can deal with it.
His kids are all grown up now, and if he has grandkids, they're probably attending some private academies, much like how things work at the AP.

So, I was watching this vet on TV, and they were saying that parents who are pushing back just don't seem to get the whole idea behind a full-time program.
The speaker explained it quite nicely: kids would basically be at school until about 2:00 PM, maybe 2:30 PM at the latest, and anything after that is totally optional.
Plus, once they wrap up their school day, there’s no more work to worry about—no more homework or studying at the kitchen table late at night.
They’ll get everything done while they're actually at school.

It feels like we might be overcomplicating this debate when the solution seems so straightforward.
On top of that, since students won't have access to AI to cheat or copy answers, they'll have to rely on what they actually know, which is why having them do all their assignments during school hours is such a great move.

I'm just trying to crunch the numbers here... if an average 6th grader currently has about 5 hours of classes a day—meaning they're finished by noon and then grab lunch—they could spend that window from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM finishing everything up. They can review what they didn't catch, finish their homework, and then be completely free after 2:30 PM with zero responsibilities at home.🙏
(Of course, math changes slightly because of the four extra elective hours per week plus two more for math and history, but those are just small details. Since they'll have a bit more time during that afternoon block, they can easily knock out the homework for five or six different subjects in an hour or ninety minutes.)

Honestly, though, I wouldn't want to be in a teacher's shoes. Imagine having angry parents showing up at 3:00 PM, giving you a hard time just because you worked those extra two hours—especially when their kid is actually crushing their exams! But hey, I suppose if the pay increases accordingly $833, it might make dealing with that stress a little easier.

Paul Davis2 said:Look, you’re reading way too much into this—you’re overanalyzing instead of just seeing the core issue. The bottom line is simple: we have some of the lowest hourly pay rates in all of Europe, student competency is dropping, and everyone is miserable—the kids, the parents, and the teachers. It's a total stalemate where nobody wins.

We’re looking at a pilot program that comes with funding, infrastructure investment, and a framework designed to align with successful school systems worldwide—the kind where student outcomes and overall satisfaction actually trend upward. It isn't being shoved down anyone's throat as some magic fix; it's being presented as a flexible foundation. And yet, somehow, it's still hitting a wall.

I still don't quite get why they say our hourly requirements are the lowest?
Basically, just because our math doesn't line up with the schedules used in Western Europe or the UK, they want to keep kids stuck in school for two extra hours every single day just to make the numbers work. 😕 It doesn't matter if the kids actually learn anything during those two hours. They'll just end up frustrated and distracted, forced to study things they aren't interested in instead of what truly matters to them.

We really need to take advantage of the funding being offered. It should be directed toward:
- Building or upgrading proper kitchens and cafeterias in all elementary schools across the US and hiring enough staff so that every student from 1st through 8th grade gets a free hot lunch (which is a prerequisite for an all-day schedule, and honestly, even some half-day schools in NYC struggle with this right now).
- Providing after-school care for all first graders nationwide (since if we're talking about child safety, that's the biggest headache for parents of six-year-olds), and potentially extending it to other grades.
- Making after-school care available—and ideally free—for all 3rd and 4th graders, perhaps following the model mentioned above.
- Hiring speech therapists and providing intensive early intervention for first graders, so kids coming from less stimulating environments can catch up to peers who attended preschool or had access to private therapy.
- Hiring psychologists so children can get timely diagnoses and support, which is crucial for both their education and their overall mental health.
- Hiring kinesiology specialists and ensuring sports activities are available for those interested, similar to how some schools in major US cities offer "weekend gym time."
- Setting up foreign language, sports, and music programs so that every child receives one voucher for a completely free activity, plus another voucher that covers 50% of the cost. These wouldn't have to be held on school grounds; they could be offered by local community organizations. This way, we give kids diverse experiences, create local jobs, and help kids socialize.
Families don't have to use both vouchers, or even one; within a household, these vouchers could even be transferable between siblings...

Larry Walker24 said:Yeah, sure, because I totally have nothing better to do than sit around at 4 PM arguing about valence electrons with a bunch of teenagers. 🤦

I need some help.
By 3:00 PM—or 3:30 PM at the very latest—we wrap up everything related to the core curriculum. I usually find that once we hit that window, everyone's energy starts to shift!
Starting at 3:30 PM, we kick off our elective activities! These sessions are designed to be super flexible, so they can be tailored specifically to what the students actually need and want—whether they're looking for extra help with A1 or more advanced practice with A2. It's all about making sure everyone gets exactly what they need out of their day.
For both programs, they’re recommending a heavy emphasis on sports and physical activities, but I don't know... something about that just doesn't sit right with me. It feels like the chemistry isn't quite clicking. 🙂
If it isn't sports, we really need to find something creative and fun. I want to pick activities that kids actually look forward to—something that makes them happy to stay at school a little longer than they technically have to. It shouldn't be too intense, but you know, just enough to make them feel like they're pulling off something big... almost like they've become Walter White. 😬

rowdypanther12 said:I don't really have the energy to dig through the whole curriculum myself. Would anyone be kind enough to explain how they're planning to run this extra module—both the standard and the advanced versions?
we're looking at 16 grades with about 25 kids in each class at the same time.

Honestly, I don't think they even have a clear plan themselves.
If you take a quick look at the curriculum, it's not actually that long; most of it is just beautifully phrased sentences where everything sounds absolutely perfect.
It’s almost a shame they didn't print the whole thing in bright pink. 😍