Lack of elementary school extracurriculars
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Anonymous
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At Arcola Elementary School, I was very surprised to hear that they didn't have programs like Student Council, Peer Mediation, Chorus, etc. This seems abnormal, but I wanted to see if other elementary schools in the county tend to have these programs and whether this is truly abnormal.
Also, if you do have programs at your school, which ones do you have? |
Anonymous
| Ours does not have them either. These kind of extracurriculars start in middle school - MCPS- at least in our city. |
Anonymous
| PTA usually runs the after school activities via outsourcing them. Chorus is usually 4-5th grade only with the music teacher. Peer Mediation - never heard of that. |
Anonymous
| ^^ same |
Anonymous
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A lot of the after school activities are put on and organized by the PTA, in other words volunteer parents.
Our elem school has none after school except basketball on Fridays put on by a teacher. One of my friends is on the PTA at another elem school and they have Lego club, soccer, and girls on the run. Girls on the run needs a lot of volunteers though. |
Anonymous
| OP seems to be talking about activities that are part of school like yearbook committee and band—the kinds of activities that would be included in the yearbook. I don’t know who’s in charge of that, but would imagine the individual school would need to have available staffing to help organize these extracurriculars? |
Anonymous
| My kids went to 3 different MCPS elementary schools and none had those types of extracurriculars. As PPs have said, PTAs organize 3rd party companies to come in to offer after-school activities like music, chess, yoga, coding. Parents pay for these, they aren't offered by the school. |
Anonymous
| They try to guilt teachers into running clubs with no compensation. No thanks! |
Anonymous
| Chorus, band and orchestra are offered only to 4th and 5th graders in all MCPS schools. Our elementary school has yearbook club, but I believe it’s only for 5th graders. There’s also student government, and 5th graders get 5th gradde jobs (optional) - patrol, morning announcements, media center helper, etc. Like a PP said, the PTA organizes after school activities, like Lego robotics, soccer, etc., and our school has a robuts Girls on the Run program. But all of it requires a lot of parent volunteers. |
Anonymous
Not really something that’s common in MCPS. Private schools have plenty of them at the ES level. |
Anonymous
Our school offers compensation but I’m exhausted and am not interested. Many parents don’t pick up kids on time so teachers are stuck babysitting them. No thanks. |
Anonymous
| Extra curriculars don’t usually occur in elementary school. Doesn’t chorus happen during the school day? |
Anonymous
| School offers few if any activities unless a teacher is willing to sponsor and organize. We have Safety Patrol and SGA(though not sure what this group does). Anything else is either PTA organized through 3rd party where parents paid or something an outside 3rd party advertised and enough parents paid for to have at the school. |
Anonymous
This! I once had an administrator come into my classroom while I was teaching and ask the kids if they would be SO happy if I would lead an after school club. Being a newer teacher, I definitely fell for the guilt trip and spent the rest of the year hosting a club after school. It's ridiculous. |
Anonymous
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My kid’s private school has afterschool programs run by third party providers. Teachers don’t have to run them.
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