I won't. I won't. Iwon'tIwon'tIwon't!

I won't start our school year. I just won't do it. Why?

1. It's too damn hot - outside and in our house
2. It's still summer (see point 1)
3. Public school starting doesn't mean I have to start
4. I don't have to take days off for work days, collaboration days, etc. Since I don't have to schedule those breaks into my year, I don't have to start as early
5. Along those same lines, I don't have the downtime in my day that public or private school has. I don't have to get everyone lined up for gym class. I don't have to wait for everyone to finish before we move on. Saves a lot of time there too.
6. I can move at our pace, so we can finish our work more quickly
   
7. I have the freedom to make the schedule work for us
   
8. We don't really have a school year anyway
   

"You don't really have a school year?", you ask. Yeah, we really don't. We're eclectic, unschooly types. The difference between school-year and not-school-year is just the amount of guilt I feel about being behind or the amount of time I worry about how much I could be messing up my kids. In the summer, I don't have to worry because no one asks me or my kids about school. The rest of the year it's, "have you started yet?", "what curriculum do you use?", "you don't give them tests?!", "how can they learn without worksheets?", and on and on and on the questions come from the well-meaning, the curious, the skeptical, the nasty...

Another thing that changes, the activity schedules - because they tend to be based on the public school kid's schedules. That's something quite noticeable - swim lessons aren't in the middle of the day, the parks are empty at noon, if there's a cool science class at 9am, you can bet it's a school holiday.

And the main difference between school and not-school, I start making the kids do math and spelling. We try to do a bit more school-y work when it's not a billion degrees in the house too. But that would happen year 'round if it wasn't so blasted hot. There really isn't a distinction between last year and this year. It's the same teacher (themselves), the same facilitator (mainly me, but really, everyone.) The same classroom (our house, their computer, the world.) It's not a marked change or rite of passage so much as a re-beginning of a old friendship.

So we won't start our official school year until the weather changes. And really, the dominant school schedule throughout the USA is based on an agrarian schedule which was based on, you guessed it, the weather! So really, we're better at scheduling school than the public school is, right? ;)