Anchor Days in MS

[Anonymous]

Can someone please explain the point of this, other than to prevent parents from pulling their kids from school on Mondays? It sometimes takes my kid 10 minutes just to get to their next class at the other end of tha school building; what is the point of a 20 minute class?

[Anonymous]

Block scheduling is not great for learning. Anchor days should be the norm and block scheduling should be limited to two days per week rather than four.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Block scheduling is not great for learning. Anchor days should be the norm and block scheduling should be limited to two days per week rather than four.

How is a 20 minute class good for learning??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Block scheduling is not great for learning. Anchor days should be the norm and block scheduling should be limited to two days per week rather than four.

How is a 20 minute class good for learning??

The classes are longer than 20 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know what prompted the change?

[Anonymous]

Carson MS doesn’t have anchor days.

[Anonymous]

Even when my school had all 7 periods on Mondays, classes were 47 minutes. Where are you getting 20 minute classes?

[Anonymous]

Anchor days used to be the norm. Having every class, every day used to be the norm. Block scheduling is the new approach.

[Anonymous]

Why would this prevent you from pulling your kid on Mondays? They likely won’t have tests on these days. I’m more likely to make appointments on anchor days since they won’t have to take a backpack with both odd and even day supplies. The backpacks are so heavy as it is.

[Anonymous]

What's anchor days? I have a kid in MS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anchor days used to be the norm. Having every class, every day used to be the norm. Block scheduling is the new approach.

Block scheduling was introduced in FCPS when I was a student in the 90s. It isn’t new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please explain the point of this, other than to prevent parents from pulling their kids from school on Mondays? It sometimes takes my kid 10 minutes just to get to their next class at the other end of tha school building; what is the point of a 20 minute class?

no class is 20 minutes on an anchor day.

Anchor days are great for consistency. If Monday is an anchor day, then every Tuesday/Thursday is an odd day and every Wednesday/Friday is an even day. No need to pull up the odd/even calendar every time you try to make an appointment. You just know exactly what days each week are odd and even and it doesn't change. The other benefit is so that if there's a snow day, when you return, you can pivot to an anchor day to keep endingy on track if needed. Missed only an odd day for snow? FCPS decides to give you a day off for the primary? The day kids return, have an anchor day instead of an even day and then restart with your odd/even cycle. Everyone stays on track.

I used to work at a school that did three seven period days and only two block days. It was great. But ultimately, science complained that it wasn't enough time for experiments so then it became every day blocked. Math and foreign language heavily prefer shorter periods that meet daily rather than this every other day nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would this prevent you from pulling your kid on Mondays? They likely won’t have tests on these days. I’m more likely to make appointments on anchor days since they won’t have to take a backpack with both odd and even day supplies. The backpacks are so heavy as it is.

This doesn’t make sense to me at all. Anchor day would have all 7 classes so you would actually need both the odd and even day supplies all in one day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anchor days used to be the norm. Having every class, every day used to be the norm. Block scheduling is the new approach.

Yup, MS had each class every day before the pandemic. They went to block for MS during virtual school and never went back. It’s a very bad model for MS kids. That long of a class doesn’t work and skipping each class every other day makes it hard for many to keep track of things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anchor days used to be the norm. Having every class, every day used to be the norm. Block scheduling is the new approach.

Yup, MS had each class every day before the pandemic. They went to block for MS during virtual school and never went back. It’s a very bad model for MS kids. That long of a class doesn’t work and skipping each class every other day makes it hard for many to keep track of things.

What planet are you on? The MS was using block scheduling way before the pandemic.