CARY - Elizabeth Theora hails from Kenya, so as she copes with a public school schedule that presents new challenges to working parents, it makes sense that the Cary resident is invoking an old African proverb: It takes a village to raise a child.

The 44-year-old accountant can't usually leave work early on Wednesdays to be home when her daughter Kimberly, a seventh grader at Lufkin Road Middle School, gets off the bus. And her husband works, too, so he can't be home early on Wednesdays either.

Theora has called in her village.

"My mother-in-law lives around the corner, so she can help," she said. "And I have a network of friends. ...You have to ask all these favors from all these people. It's exhausting."

Dismissing children one hour early every Wednesday -- and 2 1/2 hours early on six Wednesdays during the school year -- is the biggest, and potentially most disruptive, schedule change this year in Wake public schools.

While it may be no big deal for families with a stay-at-home parent, or who can afford to pay for after-school care one day a week, it is causing headaches for families like the Theoras. After-school programs are too expensive, Theora said.

School officials promise that the changes will ultimately benefit schools, noting that they were recommended by a committee of administrators, teachers and parents who had been studying ways to provide teachers time to meet.

The early dismissals actually began in July when the new school year began for year-round schools. But the change won't be widely felt until today, the first Wednesday after the beginning of traditional calendar schools. Almost 100,000 students returned to school this week.

Officials have been proactive in their efforts to win over parents to the schedule change. In a podcast posted on the school system's Web site, the school system's chief academic officer, Donna Hargens, said early dismissals will allow teachers time for "professional learning team" meetings needed to discuss student needs and, thus, help them succeed academically.

"We want to achieve the board goal and we will achieve the board goal, and the way we can do that is to have a structure in place for this team-based collaboration," she said. "In the past, we didn't have this structure and everyone couldn't implement it."

The school board has set as a goal for the school system that, by 2014, students will demonstrate "high academic growth" and that every student will "graduate on time and be prepared to compete globally."

Dixie Frazier, the principal of East Cary Middle School, acknowledged the schedule change has caused some disruptions but said parents are coping. "As with any change, there are things that have to be worked out," Frazier said. "Our families who have had to make changes have done so knowing that the outcomes for the kids will be very beneficial."

Service providers have been accommodating to the change, Frazier said. Indeed, local YMCAs are starting after-school programs one hour earlier on Wednesdays at no extra charge to those already enrolled in such programs. For those not enrolled, the YMCA has started the "Y Wednesdays" program. At the Cary Family YMCA, the monthly cost of that program ranges from $32.42 to $47.10 per child, depending on whether the family is a Y member and whether the school is year-round or traditional.

The school system itself started a Wednesdays-only after school program that ranges from $30.25 to 42.17 per month, depending on the school.

Even parents who can easily cope with the early dismissals are not convinced the change is worth it.

Terri Bruns, a stay-at-home mom in Cary with four kids, will not have a problem adjusting personally, but said other parents have expressed skepticism whether the disruption will be worth it.

"We wonder if, at the end of the year, it will just be another hour off," Bruns said.

Of course, there are some who are delighted by the change. Cary resident Jamie Colwell said it will relieve the pressure on Wednesdays. "It's nice to have them home earlier on Wednesday, especially with church on Wednesday nights," she said. "They can get their homework done and everything."