<p>U guys are lucky. My school (public school in CA) goes from 7:35 to 3:05.</p>
<p>It’s not <em>just</em> sports. It’s clubs, academic competitions, jobs, other ecs, etc.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was a teacher issue. I do know that they end up not doing much the last month in the AP classes. In AP Psych, they watched “psych” related movies- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Beautiful Mind, Sybil, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, that sort of thing is what goes on post-exam at my Calif relatives’ schools. </p>
<p>I think much depends on whether the school has final exams for AP classes. many do not. So, once the AP exam is over, there is little incentive for the kids to do anything more.</p>
<p>My DS goes to a modified calendar school with a start time of 7:25 and ends at 2:30. He is in school for 9 weeks with 2 weeks off, starts in late July, finals in December before Christmas break, goes back with a new set of classes in January, and ends the last week of May. We love it. We will be going to check out colleges during his first fall break next year. The bad is he has to catch the bus at 6:15am, but he says he sleeps on the bus so no big deal.</p>
<p>with 2 weeks off</p>
<p>What happens to the sports teams during those times. One of those 2 week breaks hits during football season. The second break probably hits at Christmastime. And of course, the other sports as well get affected.</p>
<p>Does your whole area’s high schools follow this?</p>
<p>with a new set of classes in January, and ends the last week of May. We love it</p>
<p>The high school by me has this Block Schedule (not with the breaks). But each semester is a totally new set of classes. It works well, except when AP classes are taught in the Fall…the kids forget the info by exam time.</p>
<p>My kids’ high school goes from 7:35 to 2:15. Sports practices start at 3:00 and run until 4:30 or 4:45.</p>
<p>When our district built a new middle school and had to rearrange bus schedules, anyway, a lot of parents requested that the younger kids start first, followed by the high school. We pointed out research indicating that made sense, but we were ignored.</p>
<p>Their lunch period is VERY short. D just found out that the school she will be studying at in Spain next semester has an hour and a half for lunch! She was excited to hear that.</p>
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<p>I imagine this is because administrators are in charge of supervising during lunch…the shorter the better.</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids: our school had block scheduling for a long time. The way we made it work is some classes (mostly aps) we’re taught every other day but all year round so students wouldn’t forget. Math wad generally like that too. However, our counselors found it hard to explain to colleges abot the way the schedule worked and why the students transcripts and gpas were messed up</p>
<p>I think having year round schooling would work great if it was set up how it was in other countries. There, the government decides the schedules for everyone and what weeks everyone is off together. However, in America people would hate that because we don’t like to feel like we are being manipulated by a central government, and federalism would shut that down pretty quickly so it’s almost impossible to create a perfect system</p>
<p>" One school or regular sized district can’t just unilaterally have a very unique schedule without sports schedules being affected. " No? Our fall athletes are expected to report for sports several weeks before school actually starts. They leave school early on game days, missing an entire double-blocked class. Makes it difficult or impossible for some to participate.</p>
<p>"The high school by me has this Block Schedule (not with the breaks). But each semester is a totally new set of classes. It works well, except when AP classes are taught in the Fall…the kids forget the info by exam time. "</p>
<p>No, actually it does not work well at all. Been there, done that, and everyone hated it. Kids in math and languages have 9 months to forget. Every class meets every day so kids have no flexibility to plan homework–terrible for those busy with EC’s, or who have any health issues. Miss a day on a semester-block schedule, and homework for the day you missed is all due the next day, you are behind in every class, you miss turning in the next homework. Miss a day on a yearlong block schedule and the next day you see your teachers, get the notes and hw, and you are back on schedule, no problem. And the kids have no opportunity to practice/learn time management because they don’t have any discretion about what they do when. You get a lot more kids not doing homework because they just didn’t have time.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that studies show that kids do better on AP exams when they have yearlong, not semester-blocked, classes, and there is absolutely no reason why other classes should not be the same. Some things just take a bit of time to sink in.</p>
<p>We also only had a 20 minute lunch so that may have counted towards getting out early. Most of my friends in other high schools had 30+ min lunches.</p>
<p>(in - 725 am; out - 205 pm)</p>
<p>This year they moved our high school back because of the bus runs.Something about being able to use the same bus drivers for more than 1 route. Now the high school
kids go from 8:45 - 3:45. When DS13 was in school they started at 7:30 so if you had a zero period class it started at 6:30. He only did the zero period one year. Too early for him.
Middle school starts at 8:15 and elementary starts at 7:40…</p>
<p>D’s high school (7:17 to 2:05) has done away with three lunch periods so now EVERYONE has the same hour-long lunch period. This actually works really well. Several student groups meet during that time once (or twice?) a week and students can also meet teachers on certain days for help or to make up quizzes. Mostly, kids hang and eat lunch with their friends (this allows students to meet up with friends who aren’t in their classes).</p>
<p>I’m curious how many people fit into that high school cafeteria at once! Ours has a limit of 425 or something due to fire codes, so getting all 1200 students in there for one lunch period wouldn’t work. My son already brings his lunch every day so he doesn’t have to stand in the lunch lines. I do think it’s very weird that some kids have “split lunch”, which means they go to half of 3rd period, then eat lunch, then return to 3rd period. I feel for the teachers who teach those 3rd periods.</p>
<p>Not everyonebuys and eats lunch in the cafeteria. Many bring their lunch. I think there are also kiosks (for lack of a better word) in some hallways where the students can buy fruit, salads and sandwiches. The school marked areas where the students may eat their lunch - hallways, some classrooms, outdoors as well as the cafeteria. Students know that this can be taked away and they will be back to the three periods with the split lunch, so they follow the rules and clean up after themselves. </p>
<p>I know my daughter has pretty much stopped buying lunch (lines must be way too long) and she takes lunch instead. I can’t remember the last time I put money into her account. I think she actually prefers that because she has more control over what she eats.</p>
<p>Sorry, I didn’t read the 74 replies so I’m sure I’m repeating. Just commenting that it can be a variety of reasons including bussing but sometimes families WANT that. My DD’s first high school started at 7am… this was a magnet where most kids were bussed in or had a long driving commute. D was getting up at 5am to get to school on time. It was brutal. However, when families were given the option to change it, they voted to continue the 7am start time because they wanted their kids to be out at 1:30 for extra-curriculars (even though, in our area, most don’t start until 4 unless they are school related.)</p>
<p>My D transferred to a school where mandatory classes started at 9:30 and she could schedule her other classes. The earliest she’s done is 8am a couple days a week. What an incredible difference being able to sleep in the morning has done for her.</p>
<p>* I do think it’s very weird that some kids have “split lunch”, which means they go to half of 3rd period, then eat lunch, then return to 3rd period. I feel for the teachers who teach those 3rd periods*</p>
<p>My kids’ HS has this. They had modified block, where they only go to 4 classes a day…every other day…and the 3rd class is split like this. It’s a pain for tests, because the test either needs to begin/end during the first part…or the second part.</p>
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<p>At my school like half the students would leave the high school and go to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Many more would just eat in a teacher’s classroom or in the hallway or something. I think my senior year they stopped letting people eat in the hallway but by then they were reducing the size of the school because they built another in the city so it wasn’t as problematic.</p>
<p>We had open lunch way back my day so we could hop on our dinosaurs and get fast food, but my kids’ school has never allowed them to leave the premises during lunch. But then, i think they have a much shorter lunch period than we did.</p>
<p>My kids have had the split lunch thing since middle school. I find it really strange but it’s normal to them. I think they may only have it certain days in HS. I can’t keep track of how their HS schedules work.</p>