As I am reading through Dana's post about the start of the school year, I am surprised by the difference in hours kids are in school each day. I am especially surprised by the long days some of the kindergarteners have! So what is a school day for your child?

For us it is:

K: 8:30-12:00
1-3: 8:30-2:15
4-6: 8:30-3:00

By Joy~bundles on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 06:11 pm:

Morning K: 8:15am - 11:00am (doesn't seem like a lot of time to learn, but DS learned SO much!!)

Grades 1-5: 8:15am - 2:30pm.

By Pamt on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 06:26 pm:

K-5 7:50-2:50
6-12 7:20-2:20

My kids go to a private school K-12 and the times have to be staggered due to carpooling/traffic issues.

I remember in highschool I went from 7:50-3:10, so my kids have it easy in comparison. I do STRONGLY support 1/2 day kindergarten and wish we had had that opportunity. All they do after lunch anyway is nap and play. However, thinking about your kids at different ages, Melanie, that's going to be a difficult schedule when they are at all 3 breakdowns--you'll be in your car all day!!

By Colette on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 06:39 pm:

K is either 8:40-11:20 or 12:10-3p. Unless they go to extended day w/me and then they have a regular morning kindergarten and come to extended day for the afternoon.

grades 1&2 are 8:40-3p
grades 3-6 are 8:30-2:50

we also offer a before and after school program that some parents need to use, I think that starts at 7a til school starts and then from the end of school til 5:30 or so.

By Karen55 on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 06:52 pm:

Mine are all now college age, but our school hours are:

K-3 8:45 - 3:40
4-6 8:05 - 2:55
7-8 7:20 - 2:20
9-12 7:25 - 2:21 Yes, 2:21 - don't ask me why!!!

In grades 7-12, the 1st, 3rd & 5th Wednesdays of each month, the kids don't go to school until 9:45 for teacher workshops that were formerly 2 days off each quarter.

Kindergarten is a full school day here, with the exception of the first 2-3 weeks, then it's half days.

By Trina on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 06:58 pm:

Kindergarten: AM 8:45-11:30, PM 12:30-3:15

Gr. 1-3 8:45-3:15
Gr. 4-6 8:15-2:45
Gr. 7-12 7:35-2:15

I'm very glad my district has half day Kindergarten. I used to teach whole day K., and it was a looooong day!

Our town (pop. 9,000) only has 3 schools - Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-6) and Jr./Sr. High (7-12). The times are staggered so the buses can service all three.

By Trina on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 07:01 pm:

OOPS, that wasn't the smiley I meant to post! I was thinking along the lines of a smiley with crazy, loopy eyes. LOL!

By Debbie on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 07:55 pm:

Here K-4 is 8:00am - 3:15pm. I hate that kindergarten is all day. They just changed it a few years ago.

By Conni on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 08:37 pm:

Here in Northwest Arkansas

K-5 : 8:00am-3:05pm

6-7 : 7:45am-2:45pm

Dont have kids in grades higher than 6th, so I dont know about the older grades yet.

I think full day Kindergarten is a waste myself! All they do is have a nap, snack and playtime. Why cant they come home and do that. LOL However, I guess it is beneficial to full time working parents.

By Anonymous on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 08:46 pm:

I am the extended K aide and it is basically cheap daycare. We take them to lunch, recess, they nap, we have meeting and story for 1/2 hour, tables for 1/2 hour, snack, recess and then take them home. I am posting anon just because I don't want this to come up on any kind of search w/my name on it, if this is abuse of the anon feature it's fine to delete this post. I didn't even put my own dd in extended day and she could have gone for free. It's way to long a day for 5 yr olds.

By Cat on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 11:05 pm:

AM Kindergarten: 8:30-11:30
PM Kindergarten: 12:30-3:30
Grades 1-5: 8:30-3:30

When they open the 5th and 6th grade center in January they will go from 8:15-3:15 and this first half year it will only be 5th grade. Now that's just our school. There are 7 elementary schools in our district and they stagger the start times for bussing reasons. Some start as early as 7:45. I think the earliest is one of the high schools (there are two) starts at 7:20.

By Brandy on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 09:35 am:

Well i don't know but my Alex went to K from 8:45-about 12 and then he went to another school where they did field trips and such and he learned some there too...So in our case it wasn't just sleeping.Now on to the school hours mine will both go this year from 8:45-3:25 and they will get home around 3:40 pm...

By Kaye on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 09:58 am:

here k-5 is 8:15 to 3:15. Last year my kids went 9:10 to 3:45, and since they rode the bus they were gone from 8:45 to 4:15, talk about a long day! This year will be my first experience with full day kindergarten. For my other children I would not of been happy, but for A this is the best. Mainly because what i found with the half day programs they are only there for 2-3 hours, throw a special class in daily, clean up time, paper work time and there really is tops 2 hours of instructional time. So they buckle down and work hard and play little. Well my little guy has a big need to explore his environment, do art projects etc. Although we could do this at home, I think his transistion to school will be better if it is a "fun" place. Also he needs a schedule, so to be all day in a structured environment that will offer him great academics, great art and great social time, makes me very excited. I think the other thing that is interesting is how each area has different levels of expectations of the kindergarten age. Where we moved from (ohio) the kids start school with whatever knowlegde they have, they are expected to leave k knowing their alphabet and 10 sight words, have 1 to 1 number recognition and count to 100. Here (texas)they highly reccommend you do not start your student in K if they do not know their alphabet. When they leave they are readers as far as math they are expected to be able to do simple addition. So I think it will take all day to get that through to my baby

By Melanie on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 10:13 am:

LOL, Pam. Luckily the school is less than five minutes away, so it's not too bad. This year I had Griffin go to the after school program a couple days a week so I could pick them both up at the same time. When one is in third and the other is fourth, I can have the younger one stay for the extra 45 minutes and come home with his brother. Where it will be tough is when I will have one in the elementary school here on the mountain, one in jr. high, and one in high school, both of which are off the mountain and therefore a pretty significant drive. Oh well, when the time comes we'll make it work!

I am finding this interesting, especially on the different views of all day kindergarten.

By Sunny on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:04 am:

K-8th 8:20-2:45
9th-12th 7:40-2:10(?) Not sure, will find out this Sept.

I was unsure about all-day kindergarten too. My 2 older boys went half-days and I was comfortable with that, but our distrct become one of the first around here to go all-day, so I didn't really have a choice. Now that I've experienced both, I prefer the all-day. At the school information session for parents, they presented a schedule for the students and it doesn't include naps! LOL It seemed to me to be divided into thirds - a third of the time devoted to reading and writing, a third for science, computers, etc., and a third for lunch and playtime. I think my son got more out of all-day kindergarten than his older brothers did and I can't imagine them going back to half days (which the district threatened to do because of money issues, but backed down because of parent opposition ).

By Lauram on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 12:18 pm:

K is 8:25-1:10
1-5 is 8:25-3:10

I really wish ds had full day K last year. I really think he would have benefitted from it. His preschool day was longer than his K day. Before we switched him to the school he currently attends his day was 12:09-2:50. To me that was a joke.

By Bellajoe on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 03:32 pm:

I just have a preschooler her 3 year old class was from 9:15-11:15 and the after noon class was 12:15 - 2:15 that was only 2 days a week. For her class as a four year old it will be 3 days a week, but i don't remember if it is still 2 hours or 3 hours a day. Don't know anything about the rest of the schools though.

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 08:51 pm:

Oldest dd (days short of 14) starting high school on Sept. 2nd.
M-T-Th-F 8:00-3:05
W 8:15-2:28

Younger daughter (11) starting middle school
M-T-Th-F 7:43-2:45
W 7:43-1:55

Elementary school where my kids used to go
M-T-Th-F 8:30-3:15
W 8:30-2:25

School district started all-day kindergarten last year. My kids both went to half-day kindergarten.

School is shorter on Wednesdays, since the teachers use that time for inservices. The time is made up on the other 4 days.

By Mommmie on Friday, August 1, 2003 - 02:00 pm:

Public Kinder is 8-11 or 12-3 if half day and 8-3 if full day. There are both in the district.

1st-6th is 8-3.
7th-9th is 8:30-3:30
10th-12th is 9-4.

The start on Aug. 20.

My son's private school is 8:35-3:35 for 3rd-5th and I'm not sure for the other grade levels (It's a Pk-12th school). They get out an hour early on Fridays. They start on Aug. 18.

My son started at a full day kinder but I'm moved him to half day in October of that year. It was still plenty of academics. My son has been in full time day care since age 2 so it's not the time away it was what they were doing...the length of the "intensive" time. Too much.

By Kathy on Friday, August 1, 2003 - 07:01 pm:

We have 6 elementary schools in our town. The school that my kids go to is from 8:45 to 2:45. A few of the elementary schools are on an earlier schedule.

By Mylittleanimals on Saturday, August 2, 2003 - 12:08 am:

DS gets picked up at 7:40 and school starts at 8:15 then ends at 2:45. DD gets picked up at 7:55 and school starts at about 8:15 then lasts till 2:45.