By Karen Gutierrez
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dalton Bates, 6, (right) and Connor Walsh, 5, will be entering kindergarten at Reiley Elementary School in Alexandria today. (Patrick Reddy photos) | ZOOM |

ALEXANDRIA - Every evening, the summer sunlight beckons children across Campbell County. It peeks through bedroom windows and whispers in small ears:

Come outside. Play with me. The day isn't over yet.

But the children know summer's end is near. Come Friday, about 4,700 of them will return to public school in Campbell County, the first district to welcome students back to a new year.

Over the next two weeks, hundreds of other public and private-school students will do the same.

No more sleeping in. No more water-pistol fights, kickball games or late-night swims with dad. While the sun is setting late in the day, these students must try to shut their eyes. Otherwise, they'll be snoozing in their seats come the first day of school.

"I hate it," said Matt Woeste, 12.

"We need a longer summer," said his sister, Emma, 14.

Matt attends Saint Peter and Paul School, which starts back Monday, while Emma goes to Bishop Brossart High, which resumes Aug. 13.

Highland Heights Elementary fourth-grade teacher Rhonda Herald (left) distributes planners as student teacher Melissa Daniels passes out rulers. | ZOOM |

Like most kids when asked about those breaks coming to an end, the Woestes are bummed. With soccer, swim lessons and camps packed into busy lives, summer has begun to feel as rushed as the spring and fall - especially when June is a washout, as it was this year.

On a recent day, 12-year-old Katie Kitchen went from seven hours of basketball camp to a soccer game. She ate a Wendy's double cheeseburger in the car and got home at 9 p.m.

She loves sports, she said, so the schedule isn't bad. But with her school, St. Mary's, resuming Aug. 13, she hasn't had much down time.

Private schools like St. Mary's usually aim for the same vacation times as the public systems, since they use the same school buses. And Campbell County's public district is one of three in Northern Kentucky on an "alternative calendar," meaning summer is seven or eight weeks long instead of 10. Children there get longer breaks in the fall and spring. The other districts are Silver Grove and Dayton Independent.

Cincinnati has two public schools with non-traditional calendars: Douglass Elementary and the W.E.B. Dubois Academy, a charter school. They are truly year-round, with extra days tacked onto the instructional year.

YEAR-ROUND SCHOOLS

Nationally, 4.9 percent of schools are classified as "year-round," meaning that their summer vacations are no more than eight weeks long. Of those 3,473 schools, 331 have extra days tacked onto the school calendar. The rest shift vacation days to other parts of the year, so students retain skills. Ohio has 29 "year-round" schools, eight with extra instruction days. Indiana has 28 schools, three with extra days; and Kentucky has 253 schools, seven with extra days. The following Tristate schools have shortened summer vacations. Most make up the time with breaks in the fall and spring. True year-round schools are indicated in parentheses. Douglass Elementary (year-round, Cincinnati Public Schools). W.E.B. Dubois Academy (year-round, Cincinnati charter school). Campbell County School District: All schools. Dayton (Ky.) Independent Schools: All schools. Silver Grove Independent District: One school, K-12. Source: National Association for Year-Round Education

During the summer, Dubois children avoid burnout with lots of field trips. This summer, students traveled to Boy Scout camp, the U.S. Capitol, Kentucky's Mammoth Cave - even a martial-arts competition in Orlando, Fla.

The idea is to give inner-city children the same sorts of enrichment activities that suburban kids enjoy during breaks, Dubois Superintendent Wilson H. Willard III said.

It seems to be working: Dubois has the highest test scores of any charter school in Ohio, he said.

In Campbell County, which is in its second year of shortened summers, it's too early to say how the calendar has affected learning, spokeswoman Melissa Pryor said.

Many parents like the additional week at spring break and the two weeks off in October, which they say is a great time to hit popular spots like Disney World. But right now, summer feels far too short.

"I'm not trying to clean my house," said Becky Chasteen, whose son Cody attends Reiley Elementary School in Alexandria. For the last several weeks, Chasteen and her kids have been rushing from pool to pool, trying to get their fun in.

One recent day, several moms in the Chasteens' social circle were wrestling with a water toy called Hydro Battle Bunker, while their sons waited impatiently nearby.

"What about that?" asked Bo Bates, 7, pointing to another toy, Soakin' Speedway.

"Well, sweetheart, I've got to find the screws for that," replied mom Linda Bates as she tried to figure out the Battle Bunker.

Bates has had trouble enforcing new bedtimes in preparation for school. Recently, she almost had the kids in bed at 9 p.m. Then Molly Kitchen, their 8-year-old neighbor, appeared at the front door.

Could the boys come out and catch lightning bugs?

They got dressed in a flash. And for another two hours, at least, school was the last thing on their minds.

E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com