Our 2 kids are still in 3rd and 1st, but up to grade 5 is elementary school age here in Laconia. The Weirs Kids attend Elm St School, which I find to be a bit out of touch with reality some times. OK, mostly the principle, but I'll grind my axe with her another time.
We moved up from the Concord, NH area mid-school year a few years ago and I was surprise to find Laconia a little ahead of Concord in their curriculum. The amount of homework is a bit much (up to an hour a night for my 1st grader), they occasionally pull off wonderful ideas like having school pictures and "community service to pick up trash outside" day on the same day,
, and I have found some of the teachers are just going through the motions without fully understanding what they are teaching. They do however have several family friendly and educational activities year round, and the new middle school is supposed to be started soon.
Honestly, as much as we love the lake and the Weirs, we are planning to move in the foreseeable future simply because we can't take the city of Laconia any longer. Its a much different mentality then we are used to, and you tend to be treated like trash by every department in the city government regardless of who you are or what you need. Now if we could secede the Weirs to Meredith...
Wow, looks like I ground an axe after all....