DCPS asks parents to "create your own calendar proposal" for SY 26-29

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still love the idea of nearly year-round school, though America appears to not love it at all. I have a year-round job, learning loss is real, and my kids don't need to bring in the harvest. But hey, inertia.

OP of this thread:
I would absolutely LOVE year-round school for our kid in DCPS. He has an IEP and does a lot better during the school year with a regular schedule. He definitely regresses during the summer, both academically and behaviorally.

But yeah, not really many options at all - even if you want to pay for private - year round schooling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate the February break. I am happy it's gone and I hope they don't bring it back. No other school systems in the area have it, public or private. We can't travel for both February and Spring breaks (and we prefer to travel for spring) and my kids are young so that means if there is a February break, they have to go to some kind of camp for at least a few days in a row. That sucks for them, they don't like that in the middle of February.

I'd much rather have a February break (i.e., a full week break) than a calendar dotted with random days off. The kids need care on all those days regardless of if they are in a row or not, and in a row is a lot logistically easier (and would allow those who can/want to to travel).

My kids don't mind popping into HoopEd or whatever a day here and there, so I prefer the random days off.

You're more organized than I am! I am often caught unawares by the random days and am scrambling to find something at the last minute (and have had the rare occasion where I don't remember/realize until the morning of, and am forced to improvise for the day).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do they continuously make things so difficult? They could have made it a simple survey, do you want 1/1/26 off, yes or no. Do you want 1/2/26 off, yes or no, etc etc.

LOL, yes, so simple to just put every single day up for a vote and then put a calendar together based on the results. What could go wrong.

THANK YOU for putting this person in their place (not that they'll see it). PP made fun of one ridiculous setup by proposing an even more ridiculous setup. LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are going to design their own calendar. They are not going to use any of the submitted calendars. This is purely to get feedback from parents and in particular to solicit feedback from the people how hate every calendar.

They'll wind up putting a calendar together the way they do every time. And then people will complain about it endlessly. But at least then they'll be able to say "you had a chance to submit a calendar of your own -- you either didn't do so or the calander you submitted couldn't get consensus support."

Central office has a ton of problems but as someone who has worked in city/state government and dealt with the people who complain about stuff that is always, by necessity, a compromise, I kind of respect this. Everyone thinks they can design a better calendar. Okay then -- do it. I bet you can't.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate the February break. I am happy it's gone and I hope they don't bring it back. No other school systems in the area have it, public or private. We can't travel for both February and Spring breaks (and we prefer to travel for spring) and my kids are young so that means if there is a February break, they have to go to some kind of camp for at least a few days in a row. That sucks for them, they don't like that in the middle of February.

So you'd rather tack on ANOTHER week to the already too long and miserable and expensive summer?

I understand not being able to afford to travel for both breaks, but my summer is starting to cost up to 10K for both kids in camps for 11 weeks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate the February break. I am happy it's gone and I hope they don't bring it back. No other school systems in the area have it, public or private. We can't travel for both February and Spring breaks (and we prefer to travel for spring) and my kids are young so that means if there is a February break, they have to go to some kind of camp for at least a few days in a row. That sucks for them, they don't like that in the middle of February.

So you'd rather tack on ANOTHER week to the already too long and miserable and expensive summer?

I understand not being able to afford to travel for both breaks, but my summer is starting to cost up to 10K for both kids in camps for 11 weeks!

Why do you have kids in camp for 11 weeks when DCPS summer is only 9 weeks?

I do like that DCPS summers are shorter, because from a childcare standpoint it's more affordable and also just fewer weeks I have to come up with something.

I do like the idea of the summer lining up better with the rest of the region, because I agree that the last two weeks before DCPS starts are always the hardest for which to find camp or other childcare. A lot of camps in the area (even in DC itself) only go through the first week of August. I don't know why they moved back the first day of school to the last week of August -- maybe because it's super hot in those weeks and teachers and parents at schools with crappy AC complained (which I totally get, but that's an argument to fix the AC, not shift the calendar).

I am one of the families who resents two spring breaks because I find it much harder to figure out how to handle two full weeks of no school than the odd day off or long weekend here and there. I sense the only people who really love the two breaks are people who have the means to travel for both (so both more $$ and also enough flexibility to take off both weeks from work). That's not most families, so I personally think that's a failed experiment. We did way better this year with the long weekend in February and then the random days in March and April. Many schools and activities offer one-day camps for those days and it's also way easier for my husband or I to take a day or half day of leave for some random day in March than to arrange for a full week in the middle of February, right after figuring out winter break as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate the February break. I am happy it's gone and I hope they don't bring it back. No other school systems in the area have it, public or private. We can't travel for both February and Spring breaks (and we prefer to travel for spring) and my kids are young so that means if there is a February break, they have to go to some kind of camp for at least a few days in a row. That sucks for them, they don't like that in the middle of February.

So you'd rather tack on ANOTHER week to the already too long and miserable and expensive summer?

I understand not being able to afford to travel for both breaks, but my summer is starting to cost up to 10K for both kids in camps for 11 weeks!

Why do you have kids in camp for 11 weeks when DCPS summer is only 9 weeks?

I do like that DCPS summers are shorter, because from a childcare standpoint it's more affordable and also just fewer weeks I have to come up with something.

I do like the idea of the summer lining up better with the rest of the region, because I agree that the last two weeks before DCPS starts are always the hardest for which to find camp or other childcare. A lot of camps in the area (even in DC itself) only go through the first week of August. I don't know why they moved back the first day of school to the last week of August -- maybe because it's super hot in those weeks and teachers and parents at schools with crappy AC complained (which I totally get, but that's an argument to fix the AC, not shift the calendar).

I am one of the families who resents two spring breaks because I find it much harder to figure out how to handle two full weeks of no school than the odd day off or long weekend here and there. I sense the only people who really love the two breaks are people who have the means to travel for both (so both more $$ and also enough flexibility to take off both weeks from work). That's not most families, so I personally think that's a failed experiment. We did way better this year with the long weekend in February and then the random days in March and April. Many schools and activities offer one-day camps for those days and it's also way easier for my husband or I to take a day or half day of leave for some random day in March than to arrange for a full week in the middle of February, right after figuring out winter break as well.

I don’t get this at all. All the day off camps I use also offer weeklong camps during weeklong school breaks. Maybe signing up for a bunch of different one day camps is not really any harder than signing up for a single weeklong camp, but I don’t see any possible way it could be *easier*.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate the February break. I am happy it's gone and I hope they don't bring it back. No other school systems in the area have it, public or private. We can't travel for both February and Spring breaks (and we prefer to travel for spring) and my kids are young so that means if there is a February break, they have to go to some kind of camp for at least a few days in a row. That sucks for them, they don't like that in the middle of February.

So you'd rather tack on ANOTHER week to the already too long and miserable and expensive summer?

I understand not being able to afford to travel for both breaks, but my summer is starting to cost up to 10K for both kids in camps for 11 weeks!

Why do you have kids in camp for 11 weeks when DCPS summer is only 9 weeks?

I do like that DCPS summers are shorter, because from a childcare standpoint it's more affordable and also just fewer weeks I have to come up with something.

I do like the idea of the summer lining up better with the rest of the region, because I agree that the last two weeks before DCPS starts are always the hardest for which to find camp or other childcare. A lot of camps in the area (even in DC itself) only go through the first week of August. I don't know why they moved back the first day of school to the last week of August -- maybe because it's super hot in those weeks and teachers and parents at schools with crappy AC complained (which I totally get, but that's an argument to fix the AC, not shift the calendar).

I am one of the families who resents two spring breaks because I find it much harder to figure out how to handle two full weeks of no school than the odd day off or long weekend here and there. I sense the only people who really love the two breaks are people who have the means to travel for both (so both more $$ and also enough flexibility to take off both weeks from work). That's not most families, so I personally think that's a failed experiment. We did way better this year with the long weekend in February and then the random days in March and April. Many schools and activities offer one-day camps for those days and it's also way easier for my husband or I to take a day or half day of leave for some random day in March than to arrange for a full week in the middle of February, right after figuring out winter break as well.

This might very well be true, but I think it also skews toward people with older (MS/HS) kids who don’t need care and often really appreciate the breaks because of increased workload/stress. I have HS kids, and they really missed the Feb break this year.

[Anonymous]

Why not have spring break in March like most of the other local schools. Then you don't need a February break. Or what feels like an endless winter to get to a mid-April break. I heard they always tie spring break to Emancipation Day, but why not just offer Emancipation Day as a one-off No School Day?

[Anonymous]

I will say that this year our spring break cost was reduced significantly by how late it was and places aren't as crowded. I didn't like how late it was but there was that benefit at least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will say that this year our spring break cost was reduced significantly by how late it was and places aren't as crowded. I didn't like how late it was but there was that benefit at least.

Agree that the costs are certainly lower. We are already planning a big trip for next year's spring break.

The burden of such a "late" spring break is not as bad if you have the full February week off. Then it does feel like a real break.

But the random longer weekends throughout the fall and spring don't contribute to a feeling of rest. Plus, it was pretty terrible this year that the kids had off January 2nd in order to parse out the February break days - that's always a pretty big and important day at our workplaces for kicking off the New Year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not have spring break in March like most of the other local schools. Then you don't need a February break. Or what feels like an endless winter to get to a mid-April break. I heard they always tie spring break to Emancipation Day, but why not just offer Emancipation Day as a one-off No School Day?

They tie spring break to Emancipation Day because it's otherwise really hard to hit 180 days of school instruction and not get out of school until late June. Having ED inside the spring break week ensures kids get out of school in June one day earlier.

DCPS has 12 forced federal or District holidays every school year. Plus 4 record keeping/PD days. Plus another 8 PD days. It's really tough to hit 180 days of classes.

DCPS would have a lot more flexibility if they didn't use the schools for elections and they pared back the Professional Development days.

Do teachers even want 10 days of Professional Development? I guess they probably don't want to give up the salary for those days.

Regardless of where you stand on the February break, the most important things DCPS could do is: (1) do two full weeks of classes before Labor Day and (2) ensure last day of school is June 15. Hard stop. With those two points of consistency, I think families would be happier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that they did away with the four half days for report card prep (which counted as full days toward the 180) in response to caregiver feedback, so the year goes on longer. I’m a teacher and a parent and frankly I think it’s easier for me to take leave for a half day than find and pay for camp on a random Wednesday and end on a Monday in late June. I won’t speak for the majority of teachers, but I know I’m not the only one who thinks most PD days are an epic waste of time and I would happily do away with them if it meant ending earlier and/or not having two-day weeks.

Also a parent and teacher and I 100% agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not have spring break in March like most of the other local schools. Then you don't need a February break. Or what feels like an endless winter to get to a mid-April break. I heard they always tie spring break to Emancipation Day, but why not just offer Emancipation Day as a one-off No School Day?

They tie spring break to Emancipation Day because it's otherwise really hard to hit 180 days of school instruction and not get out of school until late June. Having ED inside the spring break week ensures kids get out of school in June one day earlier.

DCPS has 12 forced federal or District holidays every school year. Plus 4 record keeping/PD days. Plus another 8 PD days. It's really tough to hit 180 days of classes.

DCPS would have a lot more flexibility if they didn't use the schools for elections and they pared back the Professional Development days.

Do teachers even want 10 days of Professional Development? I guess they probably don't want to give up the salary for those days.

Regardless of where you stand on the February break, the most important things DCPS could do is: (1) do two full weeks of classes before Labor Day and (2) ensure last day of school is June 15. Hard stop. With those two points of consistency, I think families would be happier.

No teachers don’t want all those PD days. And we don’t give up a salary for those days. So I’d rather we get out a week earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Do teachers even want 10 days of Professional Development? I guess they probably don't want to give up the salary for those days.

Teachers need the five PD days before school starts to get ready for the year. That’s when we set up classrooms, plan curriculum, etc. We need one day at the end of the year to pack up our classrooms. The rest of the days are a waste of time, and they exist at least partially to satisfy parents’ desire not to have half days.