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

[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.

[Anonymous]

I think one of the main problems with having school go so late into June is that not only does it not align with camp dates for the area (as well as stuff like summer swim which a lot of parents use to keep kids occupied in the summer, even if it's not childcare), but it creates weird weeks early in the summer and it's hard to get kids onto a routine until after July 4th.

Like this year, if you ignore the snow makeups, the last day of school is on July 17th, a Monday. But then the 19th is a holiday in DC (Juneteenth). Good luck parsing that in a way that gives you full childcare coverage. And if you attend the snow makeups (which at least are free childcare) on Th/F, you still need childcare for Tuesday (end of term/PD day) and Wednesday (Juneteenth). I think are just going to have to burn leave that week because we can't find another solution.

Then there's a full week of summer the next week, and there are camps available.

But the week after that, July 4th falls on a Thursday and many camps are only 3 days that week.

So basically my kid's actual summer childcare starts on July 8th and runs through August 9th, at which point we are still trying to figure out childcare for August 12-23 because their camp (which is at a DCPS school though run by an outside vendor) ends on the 9th. So we have 5 weeks of summer where we'll be on a normal schedule and we have 4 full weeks where we are having to finagle something, PLUS that last week of school with the bonkers schedule due to the last day being on a Monday and Juneteenth.

It sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Where are you where those 5 days give you ANY time at all to prep? I'm in meetings that are worthless the entire time. Typically I'm at school about 20 hours the week prior to meetings and then I'm there an hour early and 4-5 hours after each night the week of meetings to prep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well this new way is a great non example of equity that DCPS goes on and on about. Don’t have a computer? Too bad. Can’t figure out excel? Too bad. Who outside highly educated people are going to mess with this? Definitely not the engagement DCPS claimed to care so much about.

Highly educated to go to a library and use excel…

[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.

I'm going to have one kid in DCPS elem and one in a charter middle this year, and I was wondering why my charter child has two more weeklong breaks compared to the DCPS one (one in October, another in Feb, and a spring break). Guess it's those 10 PD days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm going to have one kid in DCPS elem and one in a charter middle this year, and I was wondering why my charter child has two more weeklong breaks compared to the DCPS one (one in October, another in Feb, and a spring break). Guess it's those 10 PD days.

Do DC charters need to hit 180 days of in-school days for kids?