Educación en el hogar: un argumento en favor de la educación de año entero
By: Keith
Algunas veces, menos es mejor. Un área dónde esto es particularmente cierto es con la educación en el hogar. Estoy hablando del verdadero tiempo que nuestros hijos pasan aprendiendo y el reembolso educacional por ese tiempo invertido, no en el dinero que gastamos en libros, materiales y actividades. Puede ser discutido convincentemente el que nosotros los educadores en el hogar realmente gastamos más dinero en la educación de nuestros hijos debido a los impuestos (parte de los cuales son utilizados para financiar escuelas públicas) y porque nuevamente pagamos por materiales y el tiempo necesario para educar a nuestros hijos en casa. Por supuesto de alumno a alumno, yo gasto mucho menos en mis hijos de lo que la escuela pública haría (porque yo no puedo hacer déficit de gasto). Pero, enfoquémonos, por el momento, únicamente en comparar los gastos de tiempo. Mis hijos se pasan de 3 a 4 horas al día haciendo sus lecciones de escuela. Los niños en las escuelas públicas utilizan casi más del doble que eso en sus aulas de clase, y aún tienen que poner más horas en la noche haciendo tarea. El gasto de tiempo para ellos es, entonces, fácilmente el doble que lo que mis hijos hacen, y lo que la mayoría de los niños educados en el hogar, utilizan sumergidos en los libros. Entonces, ¿cómo es que los niños educados en el hogar obtienen mejores calificaciones en los exámenes que aquellos niños de la misma edad educados en escuelas públicas? ¿Cómo es que mucho menos es igual a tanto una vez que todo se ha dicho y hecho? Fácil – ¡No hay malgasto de tiempo y no hay interrupciones!
El dinero no es el problema, el tiempo lo es
El gasto educativo de las escuelas primarias y secundarias de gobierno de los Estados Unidos por estudiante durante el período escolar del 2006-20007 fue de 10.041 dólares (constante). Los gastos por estudiante, si trazamos las cantidades en una gráfica linear comenzando durante el año escolar del 1929-1930 (888 en dólares constantes), sería una serie de pendientes y mesetas con unas cuantas, simbólicas, disminuciones (aquí está la tabla completa: Total and current expenditures per pupil in public elementary and secondary schools). En general, los gastos se han incrementado durante la mayor parte del siglo. Yo no quiero discutir las razones de dichos gastos porque eso es parte de otra discusión. Solo acepta, por ahora, que los gastos se han incrementado y olvida las razones. Si podemos estar de acuerdo que los gastos de la educación en el hogar no han cambiado mucho durante los años (mi contraparte de 1961 hubiera estado haciendo las mismas cosas con los mismos recursos), y que los gastos de las escuelas públicas se han incrementado, y si también estamos de acuerdo en que las calificaciones obtenidas en exámenes por estudiantes educados en el hogar, en promedio, son mejores que las de los niños educados en escuelas públicas (la evidencia aquí), entonces debemos convenir en que el gasto no es el medio por el que el éxito es obtenido. Yo sé que esto ha sido debatido por años con locura, pero no he escuchado a nadie utilizar la educación en el hogar como evidencia de que el gasto en la educación pública no es el factor conducente para obtener mejores resultados en los exámenes. Los administradores educativos y los políticos deberían tomar nota.
¡Escuela durante todo el año!
Se le ha dado de vueltas a esta idea por décadas, desafortunadamente, con mucha resistencia por parte de las uniones de maestros, sin avanzar demasiado. Nosotras, las familias que educamos en el hogar, por mucho tiempo hemos sabido del valor de la educación durante el año entero. De hecho, es uno de los pilares de nuestro éxito. Un artículo escrito por la Dra. Ruth A. Peters cita un par de hechos.
“En promedio, los estudiantes pierden aproximadamente 2.6 meses en equivalencia en su nivel de grado escolar en habilidades de cálculos matemáticos durante los meses del verano.”
“Estudios muestran que los maestros típicamente pasan entre 4 y 6 semanas re enseñando a sus estudiantes material que han olvidado durante el verano.”
Nosotros, las familias que educamos en el hogar, no tenemos ese problema. Nosotros estudiamos durante todo el año, y tomamos descansos en períodos cortos. Por ejemplo, el verano pasado nos tomamos un mes vacacionando en California, pero nunca dejamos de tener clases. La escuela va a donde nosotros vamos (en una mochila), y es fácil administrar lecciones en un cuarto de hotel o el distribuir una lección completa durante el día en convenientes intervalos. El aprendizaje se redujo en velocidad, pero nunca se detuvo. Cuando tomamos descansos solo duran un par de días, a pesar de las vacaciones. Si una escuela pública utiliza 6 semanas para reeducar a sus estudiantes cada año, es fácil ver cómo, durante el transcurso de la infancia, los niños educados en el hogar se mueven a la cabeza. Paso lento y constancia ganan la carrera, y eso es lo que los educadores en el hogar están haciendo. Si las escuelas públicas enseñaran durante todo el año, ellos eliminarían un gran obstáculo en el progreso de sus niños.
Acorta el día de escuela
El secreto para progresar es el no forzarlo. Los educadores en el hogar no hacen tareas, y hacemos menos progreso diario. Pero terminamos a la delantera. ¿Por qué? Los hechos establecidos anteriormente acerca de los problemas de retención durante el verano demuestran el gran problema con la educación – el tener que ponerse al corriente. El otro problema es la cantidad de trabajo diario que los niños tienen que hacer. Mi sobrino, quién está en 2º de Secundaria, se la pasa todo el día en la escuela, y cuando llega a la casa tienen que hacer tarea. Yo le veo merodeando por la casa temiendo el tener que hacerla, ansioso por querer salir a jugar. No es de sorprender que los niños necesiten vacaciones de verano. Sus mochilas pesan casi 20 kilos (40 libras), y pasan ⅔ partes de su día abarrotando sus cerebros con información que innecesariamente es perdida, y muchos de ellos tienen una apática opinión acerca de la educación. Oh, ellos saben que necesitan aprender, pero lo odian. ¿Cuándo fue la última vez que sobresaliste en algo que odias? ¿Acaso la educación no debería ser divertida? ¿Qué es lo que las escuelas proponen hacer para inculcar una vida llena de amor por el aprendizaje cuando están determinadas a hacer el aprendizaje aburrido y tedioso? Los políticos y los administradores educativos han decidido que nuestros hijos no saben nada de nada, y su solución es apalear a la mula que no se quiere mover porque está siendo apaleada. Nuevamente, las escuelas públicas pueden aprender algo de nosotros.
Recuperación en tres pasos:
1. Cambia a educación durante el año entero: Si los maestros están desperdiciando tiempo re enseñando durante 2 meses de clases cada año – no lo hagas. El cambiar a un sistema escolar durante el año entero efectivamente añade 4 meses más de educación (la suma de los meses utilizados re aprendiendo y los meses pasados en alto total). El tener 4 meses de regreso hacen posible las siguientes dos propuestas.
2. Acortar el día escolar: Haz el día escolar igual que en el sistema universitario donde no se enseñan todas las clases el mismo día. Por ejemplo, matemáticas solo en lunes, miércoles y viernes. Si yo hago una rutina de ejercicios para la parte superior del cuerpo el lunes, yo no la vuelvo a repetir el martes. Nuestros cerebros funcionan de la misma manera. El crecimiento ocurre durante los periodos de descanso, después de que el esfuerzo haya desglosado al músculo. Los cerebros no son músculos, pero si se cansan, y la ilustración ocurre cuando somos capaces de con calma asimilar las nuevas ideas que hemos considerado con profundidad.
3. Elimina o al menos reduce la tarea: Al decelerar el paso del aprendizaje los niños no necesitan retener tanta información durante el día, por lo tanto, haciendo a la tarea innecesaria. La intención de la tarea es reforzar los conceptos aprendidos. Pero, so los conceptos son dados en pequeñas cantidades, los niños fácilmente los recordarán día tras día. Los niños deberían estar jugando con sus amigos y aprendiendo orgánicamente, y no siendo forzado a sentarse en un escritorio cada noche solo para despertar al siguiente día a repetir la misma rutina. Una mayor actividad física ha sido vinculada con niños más inteligentes. Niños más inteligentes aprenden más y necesitan menos estimulación. Si se les da tarea, puede ser tarea ligera asignada entre digamos, la clase de matemáticas entre el lunes y miércoles o la clase de historia entre el martes y el jueves o cualquier otra clase de la que estemos hablando.
Nosotros sabemos que la educación es divertida. Desafortunadamente para mi yo no me di cuenta sino hasta que salí de la escuela. Con todo el entrenamiento que los maestros reciben, con las habilidades y los recursos al alcance de sus manos, ¿cómo puede un individuo con solo una mesa en su cocina y un sueño vencerles? La respuesta es simple “la liebre y la tortuga”. Los resultados que obtenemos son debidos en su mayoría a tener persistencia y paciencia. Sabemos que un poco de progreso cada día, no importa que tan diminuto sea, y sin resbalones, a la larga les sirve mejor a nuestros hijos. Las escuelas públicas, conducidas por la indignada (y sin educación) opinión pública, han sido forzadas a hacer lo que cualquier educador probablemente sabe es incorrecto. Han sido forzados a añadir más tarea e implementar más exámenes estandarizados, lo cual ha agobiado a una población estudiantil que ya es floja. Lo que se necesita es exactamente lo contrario. Menos tarea, días escolares más cortos. Eso, junto con un año escolar completo, es justo lo que la educación pública necesita para recapturar a aquellos niños quienes han cultivado un odio por la escuela en lugar de una apreciación.
Related posts:
My wife and I have given thought to the home schooling idea, but I think we’ve decided against it. The main reason is the socialization of going to school. How do you deal with that issue? I think it’s important that kids learn that concept in school. Dealing with other people that may not be like you, or anyone else for that matter, is important in my mind. I think that’s our biggest argument against home schooling. I hope that my kids play sports as they get older, and being around my teammates during the school day, and having an entire student body support my team was one of my favorite things about school. I know that’s not the answer for every kid, maybe not even my own, but I’m just not sure. Your thoughts Keith?
The socialization question again. I’ve written about this extensively. The proof is overwhelming that homeschool kids actually are BETTER socialized than their public schooled counterparts. We live in the real world and do real world thing — unless of course you think the real world only exists within the walls of a school. It doesn’t. No matter how many times I hear this question, it gets me every time. There is not a single shred of evidence to support the notion that homeschooled kids are less socialized than others, and the only two scientific studies on the matter (one was a 20 year study) have proven that homeschooled kids are quite well “socialized” (whatever that’s supposed to mean). My kids deal with all the same people I deal with on a daily basis, Dennis. We don’t hole ourselves up inside all day, if that’s what you think. They do gymnastics (Neil is was the youngest kid to make the Boulder USA Gymnastics team). Actually nobody knows they’re homeschooled except the people I tell. You’d think if they were socially screwed up, it would be obvious.
Don’t get me wrong Keith, I’m not bashing home schooling for this reason at all. I am really curious about how you do go about dealing with this issue. I know you don’t hole up all day, but it must be a challenge in some aspects. At least that’s how I see it. I admit that my perspective on this may be skewed by preconceived ideas of my own, and my own experience at school. I actually wish I could get over this perception so that I could home school my kids. I am a worrier and as much as I want my kids to have that socialization, I know there are kids out there whose parents don’t do the job of parenting very well. And, I know that there are a lot of problems in schools because of this. The issue of bullying is really big right now, and if I could just keep my kids home with me, they would never be subjected to this type of behavior from other kids. Not only that, you never have to worry about some sort of Columbine shooting if your kids are at home with you. I have a lot of other worries that involve me as a teacher that I would have to get over, but I would really like to pick your brain on this more.
Dennis: I wrote this (http://www.almightydad.com/education/homeschooling-and-socialization) article about a year ago on the socialization question. I wrote this (http://www.almightydad.com/education/homeschooling-im-better-than-you-or-how-to-be-reviled) on about a month ago which I thought was pretty good as well. I also wrote one about how I think homeschooling is not for everybody.
Sorry, that last link is here http://www.almightydad.com/education/homeschooling-not-for-everyone
Wow, makes me wish we could actually homeschool Lukas. Won’t happen though since we both work outside the home.
I like your proposal though. It would be nice if such an idea gained traction.
LIAYF: It seems to me that public schools could go a long way to fixing their problems by not pushing so hard. Too much politics and committee nonsense and not enough common sense educating.
We are in our 11th year of homeschooling, and although I agree with much of what you say, Keith….the hard truth of it is that people count on school as childcare for their kids while they work. Shorter days are not likely to happen. Talk of longer days is what I keep hearing about.
Where I grew up it is warm and sunny all year, and they moved to year-round-school more than a dozen years ago. Where I currently live, we are lucky to have two months of nice weather a year. I’d hate to see kids locked up in school when it’s gorgeous out, regardless of whether it’s better for them academically. Academics aren’t everything in life.
Skwerl: I’m not suggesting locking kids up in school. I’m saying shorten the days, eliminate homework and, yes, go to year round school. I suppose two months of doing nothing is probably fun for the kids, but it doesn’t do them any favors academically. I think kids can have fun outside AND go to school. In fact, without homework, they’d have even more fun in the afternoons as they wouldn’t have to worry about getting something done before tomorrow. No, the last thing I’m proposing here is adding work. Actually, I stated quite clearly here that kids need to be out playing and that learning should be an organic experience, not drudgery at a desk.
Skwerl: I’ve been thinking about this for a little bit. You’re right. I keep hearing stuff about longer school days, too. I think that’s the exact opposite of schools should be doing. I went to a private high school where we had classes on Saturdays. While we did learn, it was really annoying to only have one day off per week. The trend has been to give more homework, not less. Kids these days have an option, they can fail and actually have fun or they can do their assignments and have no free-time. It’s a lose/lose. I too, think that’s bad policy for kids. They need to have fun. I think I might have misunderstood your comments before. I thought you were saying that I was suggesting to keep kids in school longer. Sorry about that.
It makes me question whether the government wants to fix the public school system. Common sense isn’t to throw more money at a broken institution, but to fix what’s wrong with it. If children learned in one room school houses better than children learn today with not much more than a learner, a chalk and slate it really makes one think. And those kids graduated at 8th grade and new more than most college kids today. (well maybe that’s not saying much)
And considering the money situation, I think a lot of the superintendents that are paid over $200k-$300k a year should have an enormous pay cut. This is ridiculous use of budget.
As Skwerl says a lot of parents use the public school system as a baby sitter. They may complain about the school but don’t do anything to make changes. Is it any wonder that more and more responsibilities are being taken away from the parents and given to the schools? But that too may be another topic. As you’ve heard there is discussion about longer days, but the teachers will need to be compensated for that I in this economy I don’t see it happening immediately.
The reason there’s so much homework is because of the teaching to test in the classrooms. What is the lesson needing to be learned in the class? Ask a kid everyday for a week what they’ve learned in school that day and see what the response it. It’s eye opening.
Year round school is a better option for younger kids, but not sure that will work for older kids. Personally speaking of course, because though I loved year round for elementary and middle school, I longed for a full summer break by the time I got to high school. Out of curiosity, what are the scores for traditional vs. year round? Is there a significant difference? If there is then it would be a no brainer to switch. But then that brings me back to my original question.
The idea of year round school is one that is long overdue. Summer breaks, while I”m sure fun for the kids have always felt counterproductive. Oh, and you certainly can deficit spend, the only issue is unlike the government or public entities there are actually repercussions to doing so, which is the only reason why we can’t
The article is very thought provoking and there are some great comments here as well.
It’s obviously a complicated issue with many sides. I doubt the school system in America will get fixed anytime soon. How often has a huge government institution ever made the drastic changes that public education needs?
I home school because I feel it’s best for my kids and I’m able to do so. I understand not everyone in is the same position. I have friends that would like to homeschool, and did for one year, but for various reason they don’t any longer.
Another angle to being in school year round is that the kids are able to maintain more of a structure to their lives. When the kids get all that extra time many of them seem to have a hard time handling it. Probably because they feel like they have been trapped for 9 months.
In the past if my oldest daughter took off more then a week from school it was always harder to get her started again. We found it much easier to just keep going, a day off here and there but not long breaks.
It would be nice though for all the kids in public schools for the system to get better.
I disagree with 90% of your argument. Neither money nor time is the primary problem facing public schools today. The problem is parenting. Good parenting is the one thing that cannot be changed through legislation, increased spending, changing the length of the school day, or altering the amount of assigned homework. Active, involved parenting demonstrates a commitment to education, and follows up that commitment with more than a passing inquiry about how school is going. Active, involved parents sit down with their children on a daily basis and check homework as well as offer help and encouragement. Active, involved parenting is seen through attendance at parent teacher conferences and regular e-mail and phone conversations with teachers. I’ve never had a successful student with absentee parents. I’ve only seen the rare student struggling with good parental involvement. Successful students have parents behind them, pushing them and supporting them. There is no better example of active, involved parenting than homeschoolers.
While I’ve been in modern schools with good quality heating and cooling systems, I’ve never attended a public school with a good quality heating and cooling systems (except college). I’ve never taught in a school with a good quality heating and cooling system. Altering a school year to year-round attendance requires an enormous financial investment into heating and cooling improvements that is cost prohibitive to most school districts without hefty tax increases. Teaching and learning in stifling summer heat is counter-productive and useless. Address this and a few smaller issues, and I’m onboard with year round schooling.
Arby: African kids learn on dirt in the sun. Every school in winter climates has heat. If that’s all that stands in the way then it’s no problem. Besides, school gets off in June (hardly cool) and in places like Texas it’s still stifling hot when they go back. I’ve heard that argument before, but I don’t agree with it.
Besides, Kids in Mexico (I lived there for a while) learn just fine, and they’re in the heat constantly. Their facilities are terrible. My wife got her law degree in Mexico after going through probably not a single school with air conditioning. The problem is that kids are a bunch of pussies and so are parents (I agree with you there).
Excellent. Go teach your children trigonometry, biology, and Shakespeare outside in the hot Texas sun and tell me how it works for you.
Arby: The point is that it works for most people in the world without complaint. How do you think little Mexican kids learn? Anybody in Equatorial regions where it’s a lot hotter than anywhere in the US? How do they do it? Like I said, my wife got a law degree in the hot hot sun of southern Mexico. No air conditioning anywhere. How the heck did people learn anything before air conditioning? I know you think that argument is valid, but if you look at it out of the context of our pampered society, it becomes a bit laughable.
Keith, you are really making me want to home school! Maybe you should be a lawyer?
Dennis: You’re right! My wife is a lawyer, and she always says I’m the one who should have gotten the degree!
I have to say, I really like the idea of year-round school, but (yeah) I’m not there yet. We home school, so that’s not the issue. The issue is that, as the energy of Summer hits, I have trouble keeping my son’s brain inside. Our first year of home schooling, those last two weeks were an exercise in torture for everyone involved – his brain just would not stay put! He’d sit down with good intentions, but half an hour in, he’d be staring off into space, still on his first problem. The last week of May is pretty consistently the last time we’ll see his brain for a couple of months.
I’ve tinkered with our schedule each year to make sure we’re done by the Dreaded Brain Cut-Off Date. The good news is, starting a bit earlier isn’t too awful, largely because the curriculum we use is just doing concept review for the first month or two. It irks me to see him spending so much time reviewing, but at this early age I think maybe it’s more helpful. Over time, I’m hopeful we’ll be able to scoot that starting date up a little further every year, until we’re just having a nice break that gives his poor Summer-beguiled brain just enough time to reset but not enough time to grow complacent.
Do you perhaps have any suggestions on how to help my son and I cope with the energy shift and minimize the shutdown? I’d love to hear if you’ve noticed similar issues, and how you addressed them. We started home schooling him in Kindergarten, so I know that old regular-school habits and expectations are not an issue.
Okay, I know I’m replying to an old post, but I just ran across it, and want to give my two cents.
This is our fourth year of homeschooling. My kids are 11, 8 and 7, two of whom are highly social by nature. Trust me, unless you live way out in the country, socialization will *not* be an issue. A few quick points:
First, my kids socialize, not only with all the people I do on a day-to-day basis, but with homeschoolers all over the city. We live in the cookie-cutter suburbs, and I guarantee that my kids have friends from a much wider socio-economic pool than their traditionally schooled friends.
Second, the time they spend socializing is good, quality time. Not 5 minutes between classes, or passing notes during class, or hanging out at the mall on the weekends, but through peer-led book clubs, craft days, long, lazy days at the park or ice skating rink while most other kids are in school. Ask just about any homeschooler, and they will tell you their main problem is limiting the many wonderful social activities available. A year or so ago, to make this point to a family member who was concerned that my kids don’t have enough time with friends, and whose daughter is the same age as mine, I wrote out my daughter’s weekly schedule and her daughter’s weekly schedule. I showed her that my daughter actually has literally hours more quality social time with friends per week that her daughter has, and that’s giving her daughter credit for time between classes, etc.
As for sports, at least for the younger grades, there are plenty of non-school leagues available. And for older kids, there are the “elite” teams (at least that’s what they call it where I live), other, more non-traditional sports that schools don’t offer, and also some private schools will allow homeschoolers to play on their teams. Some states/districts even allow homeschoolers to take a few public school classes–particularly the extracurriculars such as sports, art, band, choir, theatre– a la carte.
Third, they are better friends with their siblings than they would have ever been had they gone to traditional school. Too long to go into now, but trust me on this one. Most school kids have the mindset that 8 year old boys can only play with 8 year old boys, and not 6 year old boys, and not 8 year old girls. Homeschool kids find a way to include everyone, and don’t think twice about it.
And last, it may not matter so much in the early elementary years, but as your kids approach their tweens and teens, there is a whole lot of “socialization” and peer pressure and everything else going on that you just may wish your children get a lot *less* of.
If you are at all interested in homeschooling, I highly suggest you join the local e-mail discussion group and just see the wealth of resources and socialization opportunities available to you and your children. You will be amazed. There are even plenty of activities for the pre-k and younger set, so you can see for yourself how happy and well-adjusted most homeschool kids are, and get a wealth of information from other parents.
We school year-round, but do a modified, shorter schedule in the summer. No more than a couple hours in the day. We try to do it in the heat of the day, when there’s not much else to do anyway but play video games or wander aimlessly around complaining how bored they are. We take a lot of days off in the spring and fall and get outside to enjoy the wonderful weather.
This summer, try doing just half an hour of reading and half an hour of math a day. You can rotate what your kids read, science one day, history the next, literature the next, or even just allow free reading as long as it’s quality reading. For example, anything that’s gotten a Newbery Award, or that is approved by you. Or you can do half an hour of subject reading and half an hour of free reading. No need to do worksheets, etc. if that feels too burdensome for your family in the summertime. Keeping up with math is the biggie, I think.
And even that little bit of schoolwork can be put on hold for vacations or busy days, or just for the heck of it from time to time. I don’t know how old your son is, but you could consider an end-of-week reward of going out for ice cream or for a swim if he does his work every day without complaining.
Susan: All excellent suggestions! I agree that summer should get an altered schedule. If nothing else, just to break up the routine, so to speak. Thanks for the comment!
Ran across this while doing some research before I piece together next year’s homeschool schedule. We are certainly going year-round again. We tried this last year (I have 7 school-aged children: 2 high school, 2 jr. high, 3 elem., 1 toddler) and though the children were not thrilled at first, they were pretty happy to have breaks thrown in during the busy full-time winter months. A couple of comments: About the socialization issue: My husband and I are CONTINUALLY having to say no to really great opportunities because we are simply too busy, and almost “socialed out” so to speak. Our children’s activities have us maxed out on the calendar (homeschool volleyball team, homeschool basketball team- which my husband coaches, community orchestra, youth honors orchestra, church activities, social activities with friends, our children’s weekly part-time jobs (including working with dad in the “real world”, teaching violin, making candy at a local in-home business for our younger daughters, etc.), and we are trying to walk that balance of preparing them to be mature responsible adults in the real world, yet reign in necessary time as a FAMILY just now!! Socialization is the LAST issue we are dealing with.
But back to topic: My research is to try and find good ideas for a family like us who are super busy, not only with music lessons (piano-all), orchestra (for a couple), and sports (for all), and also have a pretty rigorous academic workload (no, no homework- waste of time). This year I mapped out a syllabus plan for each of our school-aged children (took hours, but was worth it), and they had such security in that. They know exactly what to accomplish in each subject each week. It was TOUGH for them to keep up with everything else too, but I found they actually wanted it to be tough! I started talking about cutting back on some of our academics so we are not quite so stressed out with our time, and my 3 oldest threw such a fit (wanting to stay at the top of their game) that I almost fell over. The same three that at times complain that they have too much reading, etc. did NOT want us to tone down academics one bit! So… I’m trying to balance out our year-round school even more if I can. Maybe instead of a 36 week school year with lots of breaks as we have tried, to a 46 school year with several shorter bookwork days/weeks and free afternoons to pursue all the activities we have going. I was wondering if anyone has tried this. I’d like ideas, insight… instead of pioneering a whole new concept. I’m sure there are some out there who do something similar. I am specifically looking for info. about 46-48 week school year with a 3-hour morning school, and the afternoons freed up for activities. Anyone out there doing this?!!