The 2022/23 School Year Will Be Starting Soon
Once July 4th celebrations begin fading from our memories, the steady countdown to “back to school” begins. Sure, there’s still summer left to enjoy, but when stores begin stocking school supplies, and emails begin arriving encouraging school registration, it’s time to get prepared.
When Does School Start in Your District?
Depending on where you live, some kids may go back to school as early as the first week of August while others don’t start until the week after Labor Day in September. Chances are that you’re well aware of exactly when school starts in your local district, but if you’re not sure, a quick online search for your school district’s website will give you all the info you need about start dates, registration, school supply lists, and more.
If you’re not sure which school district you’re in, this handy tool or also this search tool will tell you. Just enter your address and you can see the name of your school district and the elementary, middle, and high schools in it. You can even search for charter and private schools. Once you identify your school district, it’s easy to find the website and phone number to get the details.
Getting in the Back to School Groove
You’ll want to squeeze every moment of summer fun into the remaining days of summer vacation, but it’s also a good idea to gently steer thoughts in the direction of starting back to school. Many students have done some type of summer school, summer learning programs, summer tutoring, or other learning-related activities over the break, and the transition back to full-time school might be less of a chore for them. But whether your kids have done any of that or not, encouraging a positive attitude about returning to school is important.
If your child has struggled in school, you may need to help them overcome negative feelings about school and about their own achievements and obstacles. Even kids who have few issues academically might have performance anxiety or socialization challenges that make them feel negatively about school. Being sensitive to these real hurdles, taking them seriously, and talking about them can help your child overcome the negativity.
As with many areas in life, if you’re a positive role model for your child, and show that you value education and you are supportive, it will help foster confidence and a positive attitude towards school. And while all of this is important, so is maintaining a balance between school and other activities. Be careful not to overwhelm your child with concerns about performance in school.
One way to help a child who struggles with school is to provide them with opportunities to excel at something. Sometimes this means giving them activities or tasks that are below their actual grade level, just to help them experience the joy in getting things right and mastering something.
Help Overcome the Summer Slide
It’s long been an established fact that students lose ground academically over the summer break, and starting back to school in the fall involves a lot of remedial work. This learning loss is most remarkable in math and English. Over the past couple of school years, families have also had to contend with Covid-related learning loss due to major disruptions in normal school attendance and functionality. This double-impact on learning has resulted in students who are further behind in these core subjects than ever before.
Providing kids with some fun activities that don’t feel like work or school yet still provide lots of learning opportunities can help mitigate learning loss. For help with math-related fun things to do, check out these resources. And for ways to incorporate fun reading activities that help kids keep up and improve, you’ll find great reading recommendations here.
Whenever the new 2022/23 school year starts for your student, it’s not too early to get ready for it now.
