1/2 day Wed for 2025-25 school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

Seriously this is so tired. Parents and families and students deserve to be in school 5days/week. The calendar is already so disruptive that adding these half day Weds. is beyond the pale

[Anonymous]

Who do we call/email to protest this ABSOLUTE nonsense?

[Anonymous]

This is so annoying. How does FCPS keep finding ways to provide less instruction?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who do we call/email to protest this ABSOLUTE nonsense?

Recommend the media, but good luck getting it picked up in any outlets (ex: television that isn't Fox, WaPo, other non-right mainstream media) that FCPS will respect.

Seriously, emailing the board does nothing but both they AND Gatehouse hate bad press.

Except many outlets seem loathe to run any bad FCPS press, afraid it will make them look Republican.

[Anonymous]

So we all have to quietly accept this utter garbage of a proposal if it extends to MS and HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So we all have to quietly accept this utter garbage of a proposal if it extends to MS and HS?

I don't see how PP is getting that. If "this year were on Mondays, but for next school year we will be moving them to Wednesdays" then it refers to the ES early release. Nothing in the Superintendent's Weekly update says anything about extending them. I haven't watched the Superintendent Matters section to see if she said that - did anyone actually see that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

Seriously this is so tired. Parents and families and students deserve to be in school 5days/week. The calendar is already so disruptive that adding these half day Weds. is beyond the pale

Why do you “deserve” it? Because you work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

But don’t all the disruptions during the school year count as planning time? There are many 4 day weeks only as is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

But don’t all the disruptions during the school year count as planning time? There are many 4 day weeks only as is.

Do you mean the teacher workdays? All the holidays aren’t planning days. I think teachers would tell you that even with those days (often filled with meetings) that planning is still occurring outside of work hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Saw write up that Reid said at school board (so is it a done deal?) that ES will move the 1/2 day Monday’s to 1/2 days on Wednesday next year? I thought that 7 Mondays this year were exception for the new benchmark training that other Va school districts did over 3 days and didn’t take away from in-class student time? If was for that training, what is justification to continue and let alone, move to middle of week? Or do I have bad information and Reid did not say this?

The half day Mondays were NEVER related to Benchmark training.

Here you go, from a September email, emphasis added:

Limited Early Release Mondays for Elementary Schools: Steering Committee Update
As a reminder, FCPS elementary schools will have limited early release Mondays during the upcoming school year. The goal is to provide elementary teachers additional time to meet new professional development requirements for the Virginia Literacy Act.

You just proved PP’s point. The Monday early release days were NOT about Benchmark. The trainings related to the VA Literacy Act are NOT Benchmark trainings. They are modules created by the state that take 27 hours to complete.

Ok . . I can do 27 hours in one week after 4PM. I don't get winter break, spring break, summer break either. Why does school have to shut down? This is so incredibly lazy and absurd I cannot believe parents would accept this without marching.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have lived in a school district with Wednesday half days and we liked it. It was a nice break in the middle of the week, plus we could schedule doctor/dentist/orthodontist appointments at a time when our kids wouldn’t miss class time.

along with every other kid in the district!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have lived in a school district with Wednesday half days and we liked it. It was a nice break in the middle of the week, plus we could schedule doctor/dentist/orthodontist appointments at a time when our kids wouldn’t miss class time.

along with every other kid in the district!

I am not sure that 100 kids out of 180,000 could go to dentist on a Wednesday afternoon is the reason to do half days. Maybe could combine some threads here and have the 1/2 days turned into SOL prep hours!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

I ask this kindly but what has changed in the over time? I don't recall near as many teacher work days when I was in elementary and the only early dismissals was the last day of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Saw write up that Reid said at school board (so is it a done deal?) that ES will move the 1/2 day Monday’s to 1/2 days on Wednesday next year? I thought that 7 Mondays this year were exception for the new benchmark training that other Va school districts did over 3 days and didn’t take away from in-class student time? If was for that training, what is justification to continue and let alone, move to middle of week? Or do I have bad information and Reid did not say this?

The half day Mondays were NEVER related to Benchmark training.

Here you go, from a September email, emphasis added:

Limited Early Release Mondays for Elementary Schools: Steering Committee Update
As a reminder, FCPS elementary schools will have limited early release Mondays during the upcoming school year. The goal is to provide elementary teachers additional time to meet new professional development requirements for the Virginia Literacy Act.

You just proved PP’s point. The Monday early release days were NOT about Benchmark. The trainings related to the VA Literacy Act are NOT Benchmark trainings. They are modules created by the state that take 27 hours to complete.

Ok . . I can do 27 hours in one week after 4PM. I don't get winter break, spring break, summer break either. Why does school have to shut down? This is so incredibly lazy and absurd I cannot believe parents would accept this without marching.

LOL

It is humorous that parents think they have any say in this. 😀

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers deserve more planning time. For that to happen you might be inconvenienced. At our school kids can stay at school and leave at regular time on early release Mondays. You all want good teachers, but you don't want to provide them with the time, $$, and respect they deserve.

I ask this kindly but what has changed in the over time? I don't recall near as many teacher work days when I was in elementary and the only early dismissals was the last day of school.

Quite a bit has changed since the 80s/90s. Back then they just gave teachers textbooks and left them alone for the majority of the school year. Now there are so much micromanaging, and initiatives, and data collection with meetings - teaching is about 1/2 the actual workload.