Parents protest having two different school calendars for children in the same house

[Anonymous]

Protest of MCPS Innovative School Calendar
Strain on Working Families: The unconventional calendar throws childcare arrangements into disarray, forcing working parents to scramble for solutions during half-days and closures that do not align with the traditional MCPS school calendar. The ISY program has been especially burdensome for parents with children at Roscoe Nix (Pre-K - 2) and its partner school, Cresthaven (3-5), which follows a traditional calendar. This creates undue stress and financial burdens for families, potentially impacting employment and overall well-being.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2024/01/breaking-roscoe-nix-elementary-parents.html

[Anonymous]

another complaint from the county's complainer-in-chief

[Anonymous]

I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the parents at the innovative school year schools to complain. I assumed it was because those families generally don’t have as much income and influence. Who would want a school schedule like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the parents at the innovative school year schools to complain. I assumed it was because those families generally don’t have as much income and influence. Who would want a school schedule like that?

Some want the child care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:another complaint from the county's complainer-in-chief

Roscoe Nix ES parents are not complainers. They are saddled with an impossible situation and want relief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the parents at the innovative school year schools to complain. I assumed it was because those families generally don’t have as much income and influence. Who would want a school schedule like that?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/calendar/FY2024/0953.23_2023-2024_INNOVATIVE_SchoolCalendar.pdf

People who want their young kids in school year-round instead of having 10 weeks of no school in the summer with the associated learning loss and child care responsibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the parents at the innovative school year schools to complain. I assumed it was because those families generally don’t have as much income and influence. Who would want a school schedule like that?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/calendar/FY2024/0953.23_2023-2024_INNOVATIVE_SchoolCalendar.pdf

People who want their young kids in school year-round instead of having 10 weeks of no school in the summer with the associated learning loss and child care responsibilities.

Who are those people and where is that school? It's not Roscoe Nix and the learning loss was not eliminated by this MCPS experiment. MCPS didn't even implement a calendar consistent with year round schooling.

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, MCPS did an evaluation of the ISY model and found no statistical difference in outcomes between the ISY schools and schools with a traditional calendar and similar demographics. The recommendation was not to scale up the ISY model until they figured out why an extra 5 weeks of school wasn't yielding any gains.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/ISC%20Outcomes%20Eval%202022-2023%20Aug2023_FINAL.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For what it's worth, MCPS did an evaluation of the ISY model and found no statistical difference in outcomes between the ISY schools and schools with a traditional calendar and similar demographics. The recommendation was not to scale up the ISY model until they figured out why an extra 5 weeks of school wasn't yielding any gains.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/ISC%20Outcomes%20Eval%202022-2023%20Aug2023_FINAL.pdf

The parents and teachers already know the answer to that question.

[Anonymous]

That does sound like an undue burden.

It would make sense that families who utilize different school systems choose to take on different schedules, but families who have no choice because of where they live, and MCPS has just decided to switch their school over to a new schedule? Not fair.

Having said that, I am 100% on board with year-round school. An extended summer break does not make any sense because it does lead to learning loss, and families aren't tied to harvest times in this century. Additionally, because of climate change, summer is a mosquito-filled scorcher anyway and a lot of kids who cannot travel just end up staying inside in the A/C, on screens. It would make SO MUCH MORE SENSE to have equal breaks every quarter. Workplaces would be better off (no long summer where parents need more flexibility), those who can afford to travel can travel at every season because every break is at least 2 weeks, and those who cannot travel can let their kids play outside at non-scorching periods of the year.

I understand trade and tourism industries in the western hemisphere are still under the impression that tourism would be hurt if summer vacation was shorter, but what they're not understanding is that global warming makes other seasons a lot more attractive for tourism right now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:another complaint from the county's complainer-in-chief

Roscoe Nix ES parents are not complainers. They are saddled with an impossible situation and want relief.

And it's not just the parents complaining. Staff have complained about it to the BOE.

It's time for MCPS to kill the innovative school year as yet another theoretical fantasy that is infeasible due to practical realities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For what it's worth, MCPS did an evaluation of the ISY model and found no statistical difference in outcomes between the ISY schools and schools with a traditional calendar and similar demographics. The recommendation was not to scale up the ISY model until they figured out why an extra 5 weeks of school wasn't yielding any gains.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/ISC%20Outcomes%20Eval%202022-2023%20Aug2023_FINAL.pdf

The parents and teachers already know the answer to that question.

Are you one of them? If so, do tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For what it's worth, MCPS did an evaluation of the ISY model and found no statistical difference in outcomes between the ISY schools and schools with a traditional calendar and similar demographics. The recommendation was not to scale up the ISY model until they figured out why an extra 5 weeks of school wasn't yielding any gains.

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2023/ISC%20Outcomes%20Eval%202022-2023%20Aug2023_FINAL.pdf

The parents and teachers already know the answer to that question.

Are you one of them? If so, do tell.

Already did. Read the post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:another complaint from the county's complainer-in-chief

Roscoe Nix ES parents are not complainers. They are saddled with an impossible situation and want relief.

And it's not just the parents complaining. Staff have complained about it to the BOE.

It's time for MCPS to kill the innovative school year as yet another theoretical fantasy that is infeasible due to practical realities.

I'm not an educational policy expert (and I hope one weighs in) but ISY is not the most nonsensical or theoretical approach MCPS has ever tried. I agree with you about approaches like "honors for all" that have failed elsewhere, but year-round school has succeeded elsewhere and has a strong theoretical basis.

I've skimmed the report above, as well as the response from MCPS and the overall cover memo from Superintendent McKnight. All of them point to some common problems: staff retention and student attendance.

Staff recruitment retention is an issue in part because a lot of teachers are also parents. There's not much to be done about that, but MCPS has tried to ameliorate the recruitment issue by letting the ISY schools recruit earlier than the traditional calendar schools.

Student attendance is a real problem. According to the report, only 76 percent of Arcola and 79% of Roscoe Nix kids were there on the first day last year. The report also details ongoing attendance issues for the first 30 days of school. So, it could be that the ISY kids are doing about the same as the other kids because they simply aren't attending the ISY portion of the school year.

Honestly, from my layperson's view, the biggest issue here is that you have two schools out of a hundred-something doing a different schedule, which is hard on staff and on students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:another complaint from the county's complainer-in-chief

Roscoe Nix ES parents are not complainers. They are saddled with an impossible situation and want relief.

And it's not just the parents complaining. Staff have complained about it to the BOE.

It's time for MCPS to kill the innovative school year as yet another theoretical fantasy that is infeasible due to practical realities.

I'm not an educational policy expert (and I hope one weighs in) but ISY is not the most nonsensical or theoretical approach MCPS has ever tried. I agree with you about approaches like "honors for all" that have failed elsewhere, but year-round school has succeeded elsewhere and has a strong theoretical basis.

I've skimmed the report above, as well as the response from MCPS and the overall cover memo from Superintendent McKnight. All of them point to some common problems: staff retention and student attendance.

Staff recruitment retention is an issue in part because a lot of teachers are also parents. There's not much to be done about that, but MCPS has tried to ameliorate the recruitment issue by letting the ISY schools recruit earlier than the traditional calendar schools.

Student attendance is a real problem. According to the report, only 76 percent of Arcola and 79% of Roscoe Nix kids were there on the first day last year. The report also details ongoing attendance issues for the first 30 days of school. So, it could be that the ISY kids are doing about the same as the other kids because they simply aren't attending the ISY portion of the school year.

Honestly, from my layperson's view, the biggest issue here is that you have two schools out of a hundred-something doing a different schedule, which is hard on staff and on students.

You wrote all of that in an attempt to defend the idea of Innovative School Year, but really there's no defense. You proposed some potential reasons for why it failed (the schools they're piloting it in already had attendance issues even without ISY or that doing ISY when the rest of the system is traditional doesn't work), but none of those are reasons to continue with the ISY program. It is objectively not working.