Lab School FAQs

The yearly bus fee is only to cover the transportation cost for all of the field trips they go on throughout the year.  They go (on average) about one field trip a week!

Transportation to and from school is NOT provided by the school district.  Parents/Guardians must bring your child to school and pick up your child each day.

They do a lot of “in house” field trips within the high school and work with a lot of the different classes. Some examples include working with the engineering classes to make and build things that correlate with books they are reading and themes they are working on, baking with the food and nutrition classes, and trips to the library to check out books.

They average about one field trip a week outside of the building.  Some of them are recurring locations like the Rock Hill Library and the ASC Greenway, but they also go to other locations like the Children’s Museum, Discovery Place Kids, the pumpkin patch, Children’s Theater, etc. They provide some really wonderful opportunities and experiences for these kids!

Parents cannot go on field trips. The teachers and some of the high school ECE students go to chaperone the field trips and ride the buses with the kids. Buses are equipped with harnesses for the children to keep them safe while riding to and from the field trip locations.

Each school has a special area set up for these classes with an outside playground area that is fenced in and connected to their classroom for safety. Each school’s playground area looks a little different, but they all have standard playground equipment (jungle gym, slides, teeter totters) for them to play on.

Each class is led by a certified Early Childhood Education teacher.  They each have a full time assistant in there as well as a part time assistant that helps early in the morning and then again in the later part of the afternoon.  The ECE classes at the high schools have a certified teacher as well that works with the high schoolers on teaching them best practices of working with young children.  The high schoolers push into the preschool class to do lessons and activities they have developed with the students. The children are NEVER left alone with only high school students.

The teachers use the Early Learning Good Start Learning Standards to build a unique curriculum for their class each year.  It fluctuates based on children’s interests within the class and will look different from year to year and class to class because of this.

The kids eat two snacks at school each day and each school lunch from the high school cafeteria. They do not allow them to bring their lunch or snacks. They work around dietary restrictions as necessary. Doing this allows kids the opportunity to try new foods that they may not do otherwise!