Thank you all--this is helpful. We will work on our backup plans!

Op

Definitely need flexibility. I don’t find they go that much over every practice but they go over often enough to ruin your evening schedule. And your kid can’t really leave. Try to find a carpool or back up.

BTDT. It’s important to have a variety of back-up plans. First - does your kid know how to use public transit to get home, or at least to a more convenient pick up spot depending on other kid shuttling needs? (At various points we used public libraries or Shady Grove transfer at mid-points. Once your kid gets to know some of the other teammates, you can figure out if there is a carpool option with another family near you. Depending on the team, sometimes they sort out having seniors drive underclassmen to certain things (e.g. swim team to get to the swim center after school).

Definitely need flexibility, but some of that burden needs to be shared by the athlete.

I find that summer practices tend to run a little later, but things get more regulated during the school year. You do need flexibility, though, especially for game days. Sports are a huge commitment and coaches often forget about notifying parents.

My oldest is starting 9th grade (so completely new to the high school world) and just tried out for and got on a JV team. During tryouts and now practices, there have been times when they have gone 30 minutes past the scheduled end time and some last minute changes. I know it's just starting, but I'm wondering how common this is? We have other children and two working parents and we are trying to figure out how flexible we need to be for these unexpected changes or if it is likely to stabilize during the regular season. Is it considered "bad form" for the athlete to leave at the scheduled
End time if practice seems to be going over quite long?