Health & Fitness
Carpenter Elementary Students Back in School This Week
An Orion Township mom talks about her experiences sending her daughter to Carpenter Elementary School, a year-round school in the Lake Orion Schools system.
While most mothers are just starting to think about school supplies, Jennifer Chuck, 38, of Orion Township has everything ready to go. That’s because her daughter Maddie, 8, began school this week at Carpenter Elementary School.
Carpenter is part of the Lake Orion Schools system and operates year-round; the elementary school has a brief six-week break for the summer. The last school year ended June 17, and students reported back on Tuesday.
Chuck enrolled Maddie in the school when she was in kindergarten and has never had any complaints, she said.
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“Kids don’t need all that time in the summer,” she said. “I remember losing a lot of information and (having) huge reviews the first few weeks of school.”
Her daughter, on the other hand, only reviews the previous year’s materials for about two weeks. She noticed the difference, especially when her daughter entered the second grade.
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In addition, the year-round calendar just makes sense, Chuck said. The traditional school calendar was created when most families had farms and needed children to help with the farms during the summer. That’s just not the case anymore, at least in Oakland County.
Throughout the school year, the students have three week-long breaks called inter sessions. Parents can actually choose to keep the kids in school during those breaks, but they have to pay. They also get the regular breaks that the other schools have such as spring break.
When asked if she feels bad not letting her daughter have the summers off, she said, “I totally fill six weeks full of summer experiences. She totally did everything in six weeks that could have been spread out throughout the summer.”
As for Maddie, a third-grade student, she’s never known anything different, she said.
“She loves it,” she added. “She has so many friends in the school. She seems to love it. She doesn’t have any problem with it.”
And the first day went off without a hitch.
“We have two new teachers, a new gym teacher and a new music teacher this year,” she said. “She already likes the music teacher.”
