Aps less instructional hours

[Anonymous]

During the bell study, They stated that APS has fewer instructional hours than neighboring jurisdictions

How much fewer? How did this come about?

[Anonymous]

Falls Church 6 hours 55 minutes

Loudoun 6 hours 50 minutes

Arlington 6 hours 42 minutes- High
6 hours 41 minutes- Elementary
6 hours 35 minutes- Middle

Prince William 6 hours 40 minutes

Fairfax 6 hours 40 minutes

That is from the presentation on the APS website. It seems like all the area systems were in the same ball park- new times from the presentation:

Elementary 6 hours 50 minutes
Middle 6 hours 45 minutes
High 6 hours 50 minutes

[Anonymous]

Like 8 minutes is going to make any difference. Kids are packing their bags to go home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like 8 minutes is going to make any difference. Kids are packing their bags to go home.

This and we know from virtual that they only get about 1.5 hours of actual instruction a day anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:During the bell study, They stated that APS has fewer instructional hours than neighboring jurisdictions

How much fewer? How did this come about?

Because APS has both fewer minutes per day and fewer days in school. The school board approved calendars of less than 180 days both this year and next year. Over last few years, they've continued to add days off (2 week winter break, most religious holidays, all federal holidays).

But don't worry - Lexia and Dreambox will make up for less instructional time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like 8 minutes is going to make any difference. Kids are packing their bags to go home.

This and we know from virtual that they only get about 1.5 hours of actual instruction a day anyway.

Not true, but nice try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the bell study, They stated that APS has fewer instructional hours than neighboring jurisdictions

How much fewer? How did this come about?

Because APS has both fewer minutes per day and fewer days in school. The school board approved calendars of less than 180 days both this year and next year. Over last few years, they've continued to add days off (2 week winter break, most religious holidays, all federal holidays).

But don't worry - Lexia and Dreambox will make up for less instructional time.

But they took away a week of summer break to make up for at least some of those days.
8-10 min is especially useless in middle & high school, where it would mean 2 extra minutes per class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the bell study, They stated that APS has fewer instructional hours than neighboring jurisdictions

How much fewer? How did this come about?

Because APS has both fewer minutes per day and fewer days in school. The school board approved calendars of less than 180 days both this year and next year. Over last few years, they've continued to add days off (2 week winter break, most religious holidays, all federal holidays).

But don't worry - Lexia and Dreambox will make up for less instructional time.

But they took away a week of summer break to make up for at least some of those days.
8-10 min is especially useless in middle & high school, where it would mean 2 extra minutes per class.

That's the irony of it all - we now start before labor day but have added so many days off that we have even less instructional time than when we were required to start after Labor Day. Adding 8 -10 minutes a day is useless - we need more full days in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the bell study, They stated that APS has fewer instructional hours than neighboring jurisdictions

How much fewer? How did this come about?

Because APS has both fewer minutes per day and fewer days in school. The school board approved calendars of less than 180 days both this year and next year. Over last few years, they've continued to add days off (2 week winter break, most religious holidays, all federal holidays).

But don't worry - Lexia and Dreambox will make up for less instructional time.

But they took away a week of summer break to make up for at least some of those days.
8-10 min is especially useless in middle & high school, where it would mean 2 extra minutes per class.

I think it would be more beneficial to add those ten minutes to the high school mascot period. The current 30 minutes isn't much time to do work and/or go see a teacher for extra assistance, or whatever else has to be done only during mascot period. Middle school - they should add it to lunch and let the kids go outside.

[Anonymous]

Death by a thousand cuts here, less hours, over crowded high schools, but we have another body being paid to sit at central office to cheerlead equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like 8 minutes is going to make any difference. Kids are packing their bags to go home.

The instructional time thing is so weird to me. My kindergartener is outside the school waiting a sold 5-10 minutes BEFORE pick up is supposed to start. Every.single.day. I've adjusted my pick up time but its just weird. I really don't mind because lets be honest, full day kindergarten isn't academically or socially necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like 8 minutes is going to make any difference. Kids are packing their bags to go home.

The instructional time thing is so weird to me. My kindergartener is outside the school waiting a sold 5-10 minutes BEFORE pick up is supposed to start. Every.single.day. I've adjusted my pick up time but its just weird. I really don't mind because lets be honest, full day kindergarten isn't academically or socially necessary.

If I recall correctly, FCPS “added” 20 minutes a day to their school day without changing anything, by counting the 10 minutes at the start & end of the day when students are getting to & leaving class. I’m doing so, they magically built in 13(?) snow days.

My kid’s elementary starts at 9, but they like up and head into their classrooms at 8:45 am. Let’s just count those 15 minutes as school & call it done.

[Anonymous]

FCPS also probably has longer days to help them absorb more weather days. The state counts by minutes, not just days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Death by a thousand cuts here, less hours, over crowded high schools, but we have another body being paid to sit at central office to cheerlead equity.

They are ADDING hours, dumba$$.

Where did you see that? The time review is just about start times. The presentation alluded to the fact that APS had less hours but did not propose solution. Happy to see an update.

I think they mentioned somewhere but you can see it in the times. Claremont initially started at 8am and ended at 241 now it will start at 750 and end at 240 so time was added on. For the 9am schools they currently end at 340 and are being changed to 350

[Anonymous]

10 minutes matters. Yes, the last 10 minutes of the day is always wasted, but it's not like now they will waste the last 20 minutes. In HS, it would be great to add time to the pass period. 3 minutes between classes is ridiculous.