Since we moved, it seems like my kids have so many of these!!!! We never had them in our old district, but here the kids get out early on Wednesday at least once a month for teacher meetings. Is this normal?

__________________
~Happiness is a large family~

We don't have them quite as frequently, but we have them often here too. I would say the girls have been out early maybe 3 times since Oct.

In the last district we had "late start" days - same thing just other end of the day. The district we were in only had 5 though.

__________________

Our district started that this year. It is so annoying.

We've been having early out Wednesdays for years, and it actually works out pretty well for me when having to schedule dental/doctor/orthodontist appts and haircuts and stuff. I love Weds nights, too, as it doesn't seem so rushed. When it was first proposed I remember thinking it sure would be great to save all those extra hours and add it to vacation days, but really, it made no difference to me one way or the other, and I really appreciate having that time now. Otherwise, as many appts as we have (both Adam and Brandon wore and continually broke their braces ) they'd always be missing some part of school. I could easily see where it would be a problem for parents who work a schedule that allows them to pick their kids up from school, but I think most employers in the area just deal with it.

We never have early out's on any other day during the year except the last couple of days of school, but I remember when I was in school in NC, it seemed we had them all the time. Not sure what for?

__________________
Sheri~ Wife to Steve, Mom to Adam (14), Brandon (12), and Tommy (7)

The kids in our school district only get early outs on the last day before Christmas vacation, the last day of school, and for bad weather.

Well, I have never been familiar with early releases when my kids were in school but they are grown.
DGD goes to school in the county beside me. She gets out a lot at 12:30 PM on Fridays.
That is OK with me, because I always pick her up on Fridays. Sometimes it is on Thurs. and Fri. This last grading period, they had conferences those 2 afternoons with parents.
I'm sure it is a hard ship on some parents.

To me they are frustrating. We have them on Tuesdays every week and our highschool does it an additional 8-10 times a month. This is the first year for it and will become the normal trend from here on out. Why it is frustrating is b/c I constantly have to check the calendar to see what time I'm picking kids up each day. It has also lengthened the school year some. The kids love it though provided the weather is nice and they don't get a lot of homework, but usually on these days, the kids get twice as much homework b/c the school day is half as long and the teachers don't want to get off schedule. However it was the teachers and their union who fought for this as they didn't want to have to stay at school any longer than 4:00 so now all conferences and meetings are held before that time so that the teachers can still leave at normal time. Which, while this doesn't affect me, has frustrated a lot of parents who now have to take off work to attend the parent teacher conferences. Our elementary schools make attending these conferences almost mandatory.

We haven't had any.... I'm sure if we had bad weather we'd have early dismissal, but none thus far...

__________________
Have you been in the Spotlight yet?