MORE school questions (public school only)

mandymack · February 2014

Does your school offer the "extras" (music, art, science, PE) daily, weekly, a few times each month?
K has one hour of music every week and a motor fitness class one hour a week taught by parent volunteers.
1st thru 5th grade have music and PE for one hour twice a week.
Art lessons, garden lessons, and Science lessons are taught once monthly by parent volunteers and it's paid for by our PTA.
California State budget cuts removed everything from our schools. In fact, our Full time PE and Music teachers are staffed by PTA funds.

How many recesses do they have and what is the total time they are free to play?
K get one 15-min recess in the AM and 30-min at lunch time, so 45 minutes total every day.
1-5th get two 15-min recesses and 30-min at lunch time so, one hour total every day.

notkateanymore · February 2014

That is a lot of recess for older kids, but I guess it's free and they had to fill up the time when they cut everything else.

DD has PE every day, music, art, Spanish, Computer Lab, Library and Counselor once a week as well. All taught my real teachers, not parents. They have 30 minutes of PE and 30 minutes of recess a day.

jnksmom · February 2014

Our school has a 7 day rotation for specials. They have PE and art 2 times in the rotation and music, library, and technology lab once in that rotation. All have certified teachers but our PTA paid for all the computers in the tech lab a few years ago when they added that class.

All grades get 30 minutes of recess each day.

ETA: our specials are 45 minutes every day.

shotzie · February 2014

My girls aren't in school yet, but my niece and nephew are in elementary school. They only have Art for a week every 5 weeks!! When I was in elementary school, I think we had art and music on alternating days, and we had gym every day. It makes me so sad to see the Arts and PE cut from schools.

I took DD1 to a ballet performance a couple weeks ago, and an older lady near us brought up this same topic. She said it's really important that we expose our kids to music and art since they generally aren't getting those classes in school anymore.

penguingrrl · February 2014

Our school is on a 6 day cycle instead of a week. It's very confusing as a parent, but apparently the kids understand without a problem and remember what "day" it is lol!

When K was half day they had music, gym, art, library and computers for 40 minutes each once per cycle, Spanish was two separate 20 minute chunks.

1-4 we have art once, library once, gym 3 x (although it's days 1,2,3 hen I think it should b 1,3,5 so it's every other), music twice, computers once.

One 30 minute recess plus 30 minutes for lunch. The hour black for lunch and recess is lunch time for the teachers.

Andrewsgal · February 2014

K-5 have one recess (well K has two), art or music rotate days every other day, PE everyday. 30 minutes of recess a day. Edited I forgot about library and computers. Library is once a week and computers the get the iPad cart three days a week per class.

penguingrrl · February 2014

Oh, and everything is taught by certified teachers.

Chapter79 · February 2014

I would not like parent volunteers teaching my kid. Even if it's just gym...... What the heck??!! I didn't even know this was a thing. DD has music twice a week, art one day and gym twice. So something daily. She has 20 min recess every day after eating lunch. Every Friday the teacher gives "Friday fun time" for 30 minutes to the kids with no yellow lights. They can read, play, do puzzles, draw, etc.

Mrs.Hizzo · February 2014

1. Specials (art, music, PE) are on a rotating basis, and three days a week in Kindergarten. The fourht and fifth day that time is used for the library and the computer lab. Science is not an extra, it's part of the curriculum. DS also takes Spanish through the school, but it takes place in the morning before school starts and we pay for it.

2. There are 3 recesses for full-day kindergarten. Ten minutes in the morning, twenty minutes after lunch, and another ten minutes in the afternoon. Not enough, as far as I'm concerned.

LoriLee14 · February 2014

PE everyday (45 mins)

Then they alternate weeks on the extra

week 1 - art, computer, library

week 2 - music, heath

Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies is an everyday thing too

JCM · February 2014

Wow! I'm surprised about the lack of daily PE. In elementary we had 45 minutes everyday. Some days were more structured than other days but it was great. We also had a 15 minute recess in the mornings. I can't imagine kids not being able to burn more than 15 minutes of energy a day.

bhuffman · February 2014

They do get extras. They have Music one a week for half the year/Art once a week for the other half.
They have PE and Library/Media once a week for the full year.
They have STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathmatics) twice a week for the entire year.
They have recess daily for 30 minutes. I know K breaks that up to two 15 minute slots. Not sure about the other grades.

Eta: the math portion of STEM is extra math; the still teach math daily in the classroom.

fancynewbeesly · February 2014

Our school does 40 minutes of "specials"; in grade 1 and 2 it is: music, art, health, library and gym. Grades 3 it is music, health, art, tech and gym. Grade 4 and 5 it is music, art, Spanish, tech and gym.

Kindergarten is only 30 minute specials and it is: music, art, library and gym.

1-5 grade has 35 minutes total for lunch and recess. (So usually 20 minutes for lunch and 15 for recess)

Spin313 · February 2014

DS is in kindy and they have one or two "specials" a day (computers, music, art, gym, library). They have one or two short recesses plus a longer one after lunch.

Chapter79 · February 2014

CnAmom said:

Wow! I'm surprised about the lack of daily PE. In elementary we had 45 minutes everyday. Some days were more structured than other days but it was great. We also had a 15 minute recess in the mornings. I can't imagine kids not being able to burn more than 15 minutes of energy a day.
DS1 gets time to play in the morning before school (I drop him off early) in addition to the lunch recess, extra recess once a week, and PE twice a week. I think it's mostly because the student body is the largest it's ever been and they just can't accomodate daily PE for over 600 kids.

This, there would be NO way to fit all my DD's school in to have PE daily, unless they extended the school day by hours or had 80 kids in each class. I didn't mention they do get 15-30 minutes of "run" time before school starts, depending on how early the kid gets to school. In the warmer months they play outside before the bell. In the winter, they all go run in the gym and play.

Court0026 · February 2014

DS has a 6 day schedule too. They have gym every other day and music, art and libary on the other days. They have recess everyday after lunch and computers once a week.

id012 · February 2014

DS isnt in school yet, but at my moms public school the kids get, music, art, computer lab, ipad "labs", library and gym. Then of course they have resess I think recess is 30 mins, and the rest is 45-hour. Everything is once a week, gym twice.

jnksmom · February 2014

JCM said:

Wow! I'm surprised about the lack of daily PE. In elementary we had 45 minutes everyday. Some days were more structured than other days but it was great. We also had a 15 minute recess in the mornings. I can't imagine kids not being able to burn more than 15 minutes of energy a day.

Our school has almost 1100 students with 6-8 classes per grade. There is no way everyone could have PE daily. They already combine some classes for PE just for them to have it 2 times in the 7 day rotation.

roxy_jj · February 2014

I'm in CA too and it's sad how much has been cut. Last year they didn't even have P.E. for a couple of months when the P.E. teacher left. Now they have a contract with a company that comes out and does the P.E. It's a really good program and I'm happy with it. I only wish they had P.E. more frequently.

They rotate with specials, one day a week each of P.E., music, library and computer lab. Music and P.E. are staffed by trained professionals, library and computers are a combination of teachers and parent volunteers. Our PTA funds also pay for P.E. and the music teacher. They have some art as part of the regular curriculum and the special art projects are twice a month conducted by parent volunteers. They also have a separate ceramics program once a month, also taught by parent volunteers.

They also have gardening once a week taught by parent volunteers. That takes place during recess, so not all the kids participate. DD loves garden time and usually attends.

Science is part of the regular curriculum. I'm in Silicon Valley, so there's a big emphasis on science here and DD's school has an excellent science program.

Kindergarten here is only half day and they only have one 15 minute recess. Grades 1-5 have a 20 minute morning recess and 50 minutes for lunch.

mandymack · February 2014

Let me clarify the "parent taught" portions: it's the hands-on, out of the classroom part of the curriculum. The teachers are teaching the lesson but the parent volunteers take them out to the blacktop to build and set of rockets or out to the garden to compost worms, harvest vegetables, etc. It's ONLY because we have a $200,000+ yearly PTA budget to work with that our elementary school has anything! It's just disgusting how much has been taken from our schools. Just last night I attended a district-wide MOF meeting that is putting up yet another Bond measure worth $130million. That's $130million they are spreading out over the property taxes home owners and businesses just to upgrade the schools to bring them to code. Taxes went up $600+/yr for single family homeowners two years ago in the last bond measure. The community shoulders the burden of a decent (not great) educational experience.

Living in CA is incredibly frustrating.

Being from Texas and NEVER going without art, music, PE, language classes, etc. makes it really difficult for me to raise kids out here.

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