MCPS updated calendar is insane

[Anonymous]

This is one of the most ridiculous MCPS school calendars ever. Every single one of these clowns need to be voted out.

Essentially, you have starting on the 18th School
No school
Weekend
School
No school
School- half day
School- half day

Nobody’s going to be there after the 18th. Flat out ridiculous and a waste of resources.

[Anonymous]

You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what 3 contingency days could have been used?
March 20, June 18 and ??
Just do that and resubmit. June 25 is outrageous for a last day

April 15 was the other one.

They should just take the asterisks off the contingency days on next year's calendar, they're a joke.

Why are they not doing this? I do not understand. March 20, April 15 and June 18. Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

That was not the case at our elementary school. People said it was a joke and would not send their kids again. I’d estimate under 50 percent attendance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

That was not the case at our elementary school. People said it was a joke and would not send their kids again. I’d estimate under 50 percent attendance.

I’m sure it varies by school but keep in mind the people talking about it are the ones not sending their kids. They are the louder group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

That was not the case at our elementary school. People said it was a joke and would not send their kids again. I’d estimate under 50 percent attendance.

Obviously schools in higher FARMS regions will see much higher attendance than other schools based on those essential services that schools provide children with. We're a very large and diverse school systems and obviously nobody will ever fully have their needs met but the right thing to do is try to accommodate the children who really depend on these services. I like to believe everyone would agree that supporting children should be a top priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

That was not the case at our elementary school. People said it was a joke and would not send their kids again. I’d estimate under 50 percent attendance.

Obviously schools in higher FARMS regions will see much higher attendance than other schools based on those essential services that schools provide children with. We're a very large and diverse school systems and obviously nobody will ever fully have their needs met but the right thing to do is try to accommodate the children who really depend on these services. I like to believe everyone would agree that supporting children should be a top priority.

That makes sense but does the data from last year support that? I’d be curious if that’s actually the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

My kids went as we hoped they’d learn something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You'll be surprised how many kids will be there that final week. Last year at my middle school, the county authorized 8th graders to have excused absences following 8th grade promotion ceremony which was a full TEN days before the last day of school. We still had like 70% of 8th graders show up those final 10 days for social and economic reasons.

Most of these schools will not be ghost towns like you think they will be.

My kids went as we hoped they’d learn something.

I mean if you had a graduating 8th grader, it should have been expected and assumed that they would not be doing anything really learning based after the promotion ceremony. You aren't going to issue any assignments that could potentially negate the fact they just "graduated"

[Anonymous]

How far was the calendar pushed back when we had the blizzard during the 2015-16 year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's 2018-2019: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://teacherquality.nctq.org/dmsView/0285_18_2018-19_SchoolCalendar&ved=2ahUKEwjQ7LaSmeiSAxVXFlkFHR48GuQQFnoECBAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Bv9-dJpYrnJ4juwux-MaD

Looks like they used to have half days for end of quarter grading/planning instead of full.

They need to go back to that.

Yes, we can't have BOTH full-day grading days and take off every single religious holiday. I don't care which we get rid of, but it has to be one.

Or you start one week earlier in August like FCPS dose, and which also has a lot of religious holidays built in (and 3 snow days, unlike stupid MCPS which only puts in 1). There are a lot of options here that are preferrable to this annual chaos around MCPS snow days.

Where I grew up we had 3 snow days. If they weren't used, school ended earlier. If there were more than 3 snow days, they were added on in June. There wasn't this drama and constantly shifting calendars like MCPS does.

+1. I truly don’t understand why MCPS is incapable of putting in an appropriate number of snow days. They create so many issues by not planning well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is one of the most ridiculous MCPS school calendars ever. Every single one of these clowns need to be voted out.

Essentially, you have starting on the 18th School
No school
Weekend
School
No school
School- half day
School- half day

Nobody’s going to be there after the 18th. Flat out ridiculous and a waste of resources.

This is stupid and bad planning by McPS, particularly since we had this same issue last year. But I sent both my kids to school last year on the half days and they said about 2/3 of the kids were there and they did fun activities with the teacher.

But my kids aren’t in a rich school where everyone goes to sleepaway camp.

[Anonymous]

I’m not sending one of my kids to school the week of June 15 bc I think it’s ridiculously too long in school. The kids need to be done after the first two weeks of June. Anything past that is too long. It’s the damn summer. MCPS is ridiculous that they can’t plan for contingencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would June 23rd be off, if we have to go until the 25th?

State primary elections and county elections. A large number of schools are used as polling stations so they could not have students

This is maybe the dumbest part of this. The polling stations are in the gym; just cancel gym classes that day. That's what happened when I was a kid, we never had off for election day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth would June 23rd be off, if we have to go until the 25th?

State primary elections and county elections. A large number of schools are used as polling stations so they could not have students

This is maybe the dumbest part of this. The polling stations are in the gym; just cancel gym classes that day. That's what happened when I was a kid, we never had off for election day.

You're ok with 100s of adult strangers entering the building all day with kids in the building? That's a first for me