FCPS Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3 hour early release is a disaster. They tried that in the past and they could barely fit in lunch for all the grades. 2 hour early release works better. Why not just do that??

Everything is a disaster and chaos on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's like the school board and the extremely top heavy administration don't actually care about kids actually learning.

They got rid of the old early release Mondays at parents' request but it did not help children or learning. They need to bring it back so that elementary school teachers would have proper planning time and less stress and overwork. That's what the administration should do if they care about kids actually learning.

This. I'm tired of hearing parents "my kids learn nothing at school but take my kids more" schools are not day cares and teachers need planning. period and no they should not have to do state mandated trainings without pay or for some measly 15 dollars and hour. NO!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. If students need to stay at school on those days, they can. There will be supervision at school. Parents can choose to have them go home at the early release time or later (at normal dismissal) with double
bus runs. Reid mentioned this in the email (vaguely).

Teacher also. Won’t this just cause more problems with subs. It was intended that families with childcare issues can stay but now anyone can stay and then what? Whole classes need people watching them with no teaching going on? I just don’t see how this is supposed to work.

The steering committee is also working on bringing in other groups to the school during those times, in addition to SACC: YMCA, scouts, tutors, being running enrichment clubs; and remember, not every staff member is attending this training.

[Anonymous]

This seems like political retribution and not in best interests of families or kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3 hour early release is a disaster. They tried that in the past and they could barely fit in lunch for all the grades. 2 hour early release works better. Why not just do that??

Because then they would need about 12 days early release days. Is 12 better than 7?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS totally sucks. It sucks for teachers - pay them some real money, it sucks for parents and mostly it sucks for kids. With the gigantic budget FCPS has, please do better.

Just stop. It has nothing to do with FCPS. It’s mandated by the state. Call your representative and your governor.

The training may be mandated by the state, but this implementation is squarely FCPS. Let's not conflate the two.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(OP) My first grader didn’t learn a single thing this year. Like, his writing, iReady scores and love of reading actually got worse over the course of the year.

This is also going to be my first year without childcare and I was going to try to make it work, but now I’m feeling like I need coverage for these days as well.

Between all of the holidays, teacher in service days, etc., learning is going to be SO disrupted and disjointed.

Sorry but school is not daycare.

Yes but school should be school and in order to learn kids need to be in school on a consistent schedule, especially in elementary.

[Anonymous]

Why can't they start 3 days early or end 3 days late instead of taking away hours of learning for the kids???

Anonymous wrote:Let’s try again a little louder for those who missed it:

FCPS is not doing this because they want to. We already have summer training for the new reading curriculum. This is because of the new Virginia Literacy Act passed by the state government that mandates tons of extra hours of reading training.
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/53785/638484584671300000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This seems like political retribution and not in best interests of families or kids.

I probably shouldn't even entertain this, but retribution for what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's like the school board and the extremely top heavy administration don't actually care about kids actually learning.

They got rid of the old early release Mondays at parents' request but it did not help children or learning. They need to bring it back so that elementary school teachers would have proper planning time and less stress and overwork. That's what the administration should do if they care about kids actually learning.

This. I'm tired of hearing parents "my kids learn nothing at school but take my kids more" schools are not day cares and teachers need planning. period and no they should not have to do state mandated trainings without pay or for some measly 15 dollars and hour. NO!

Exactly. Which is why they need EVERY MONDAY OFF for training and planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can't they start 3 days early or end 3 days late instead of taking away hours of learning for the kids???

Anonymous wrote:Let’s try again a little louder for those who missed it:

FCPS is not doing this because they want to. We already have summer training for the new reading curriculum. This is because of the new Virginia Literacy Act passed by the state government that mandates tons of extra hours of reading training.
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/53785/638484584671300000

Also if this is the case why the silly email about how our poor teachers have so much to do! Why not just say, the state has mandated such and such and this is how we are best meeting the new requirements. That’s just terrible communication.

[Anonymous]

They could take some of those days off at the end of the year after SOLs are over. My 5th grader watched 3 Disney movies and had a 2 hr recess this week. They didn’t even pretend to teach anything after the SOLs were over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can't they start 3 days early or end 3 days late instead of taking away hours of learning for the kids???

Anonymous wrote:Let’s try again a little louder for those who missed it:

FCPS is not doing this because they want to. We already have summer training for the new reading curriculum. This is because of the new Virginia Literacy Act passed by the state government that mandates tons of extra hours of reading training.
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/53785/638484584671300000

Because paying all elementary teachers their salary for 3 extra days would be $$$$ that they don't have. If the state provided budget for this mandate, it would be an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't they start 3 days early or end 3 days late instead of taking away hours of learning for the kids???

Anonymous wrote:Let’s try again a little louder for those who missed it:

FCPS is not doing this because they want to. We already have summer training for the new reading curriculum. This is because of the new Virginia Literacy Act passed by the state government that mandates tons of extra hours of reading training.
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/53785/638484584671300000

Also if this is the case why the silly email about how our poor teachers have so much to do! Why not just say, the state has mandated such and such and this is how we are best meeting the new requirements. That’s just terrible communication.

I 100% agree the communication was terrible. They opened themselves up to so much ire when they could have phrased it as, "The state has required us to dedicate x number of hours to new reading instruction, so this is the best way we could implement on short notice. We will be providing aftercare to families who need it, more information will be available by school return in August."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish they would have done this on Fridays so we could get a jump start on the weekend.

They probably don't want the teachers to leave early for the weekend