MCPS School Hours

[Anonymous]

There are two tiers of ES to accommodate busses. Some start at 9:25 and some at 9:05

[Anonymous]

Ideally everyone should start at 8:30 or so. And we should have many more smaller ES to eliminate ES busses so only MS and HS is bussed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious what the general consensus is on the MCPS school hours?

Elementary: 9:25AM - 3:45PM
Middle: 9:00AM - 3:00PM
HS: 7:45AM - 2:30PM

Elementary starting after most jobs' normal working hours seems... odd but them getting out relatively late so parents can get home from work soon after is better.

I get that HS and MS to a lesser extent get out earlier and start earlier to make room for after school sports/activities + homework. But what exactly is the problem with having later practices? Second, homework is not an effective way to learn and practice should be done in classroom, not out of it. Lastly, several recent studies about start times is the later the better for students' (especially teenagers) sleep, attentiveness, health, and learning outcomes.

I'm short, what in the world is the reasoning here and why haven't MCPS updated with the times? Are there vested interests (teachers, admins, parents(!?)) against it?

Transportation costs and lack of parking infrastructure to store buses play a factor in staggering the use of buses in shifts for the different school levels.

[Anonymous]

In my humble opinion no one needs to be school at 7 anything in the morning. It’s too early for anyone. But because here in the US we have this crazy bus system and expectation of free bus service here we are.
School is not supposed to mimic an adult work day thankfully.. so your work hours should have no bearing on school hours. I worked 6-6 yesterday and today and I’m off tomorrow and Thursday. I pay for childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The studies have shown that early bed times don't help, they actually need to start later. And the homework being so onerous sounds like the real problem here, would love to hear why it's even necessary in this day and age.

They have taken homework away. It’s only 10% of the grade so many kids skip it since they don’t mind taking the hit.

You know what result is? Kids are struggling to pass tests and they’re unprepared for college, where homework is expected of them. You live in fantasyland.

Based on what evidence are they less prepared for college? Homework isn't required/expected in most college classes; it's way more about exams and papers.

Homework is required in most classes in college. I don’t know where you’re pulling this non fact from.

In terms of evidence kids today are unprepared for college, take your pick:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/prospective-college-students-increasingly-say-they-feel-unprepared-for-higher-education#:~:text=Twenty%2Dtwo%20percent%20of%20respondents,students%20said%20they%20felt%20unprepared.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/us/covid-college-students.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://nypost.com/2022/10/04/many-nyc-public-school-grads-arent-ready-for-college-comptroller/amp/

https://theconversation.com/declines-in-math-readiness-underscore-the-urgency-of-math-awareness-202691

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ideally everyone should start at 8:30 or so. And we should have many more smaller ES to eliminate ES busses so only MS and HS is bussed.

This is an urban county - there isn't land for more elementary schools, even smaller ones, esp. in down-county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my humble opinion no one needs to be school at 7 anything in the morning. It’s too early for anyone. But because here in the US we have this crazy bus system and expectation of free bus service here we are.
School is not supposed to mimic an adult work day thankfully.. so your work hours should have no bearing on school hours. I worked 6-6 yesterday and today and I’m off tomorrow and Thursday. I pay for childcare.

How stupid we are!
We should all have morning nannies for our kids so they can sleep in.

[Anonymous]

This is the same white liberal quackery that tries to reinvent things no one needs or asked them to.

White liberals screamed for year-round school and touted all kinds of supposed benefits and pointed to data on how much learning loss happens. So MCPS introduced the innovative school year calendar and now the staff at Roscoe Nix are crying to the BOE every month about how awful it is, how their families hate it and how they’re dying to go back to the traditional school year calendar.

White liberal fantasies rarely stand up to reality.

[Anonymous]

This has been discussed to death and it's never going to change. Put your thoughts to other things, people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ideally everyone should start at 8:30 or so. And we should have many more smaller ES to eliminate ES busses so only MS and HS is bussed.

This is an urban county - there isn't land for more elementary schools, even smaller ones, esp. in down-county.

It's a suburban county. If it were an urban county, we wouldn't have to have this enormous, expensive system of school bus transportation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ideally everyone should start at 8:30 or so. And we should have many more smaller ES to eliminate ES busses so only MS and HS is bussed.

This is an urban county - there isn't land for more elementary schools, even smaller ones, esp. in down-county.

And even of there were land, and money to buy it, MCPS wouldn't build a small one - their motto is "the bigger the better!" They want:
ES - 770/800
MS - 1500
HS - 2700 (WJ they wanted to build to 3500!)

State of MD says the sweet spot (otherwise too big, and you lose too much even though you gain economies of scale) is:
ES - 600
MS - 1000
HS - 2000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The studies have shown that early bed times don't help, they actually need to start later. And the homework being so onerous sounds like the real problem here, would love to hear why it's even necessary in this day and age.

They have taken homework away. It’s only 10% of the grade so many kids skip it since they don’t mind taking the hit.

You know what result is? Kids are struggling to pass tests and they’re unprepared for college, where homework is expected of them. You live in fantasyland.

Based on what evidence are they less prepared for college? Homework isn't required/expected in most college classes; it's way more about exams and papers.

Homework is required in most classes in college. I don’t know where you’re pulling this non fact from.

In terms of evidence kids today are unprepared for college, take your pick:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/prospective-college-students-increasingly-say-they-feel-unprepared-for-higher-education#:~:text=Twenty%2Dtwo%20percent%20of%20respondents,students%20said%20they%20felt%20unprepared.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/us/covid-college-students.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://nypost.com/2022/10/04/many-nyc-public-school-grads-arent-ready-for-college-comptroller/amp/

https://theconversation.com/declines-in-math-readiness-underscore-the-urgency-of-math-awareness-202691

First homework is absolutely not required in most college classes, please look that up.

Second, no argument that students aren't as prepared for college but equating that to lack of homework is laughable. That's because of common core math and teaching reading with the wrong method for the past 2 decades. Thankfully phonics is gaining traction for teaching reading; still need to improve math outcomes though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my humble opinion no one needs to be school at 7 anything in the morning. It’s too early for anyone. But because here in the US we have this crazy bus system and expectation of free bus service here we are.
School is not supposed to mimic an adult work day thankfully.. so your work hours should have no bearing on school hours. I worked 6-6 yesterday and today and I’m off tomorrow and Thursday. I pay for childcare.

How stupid we are!
We should all have morning nannies for our kids so they can sleep in.

Wasn’t calling anyone stupid. We also don’t have a nanny. Spouse works 4-midnight so we only pay for after school care 10 days a month. We have a sitter and pay her well because we know they’re hard to find. My point is that school can’t cater to everyone’s work schedules and neither is it supposed to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my humble opinion no one needs to be school at 7 anything in the morning. It’s too early for anyone. But because here in the US we have this crazy bus system and expectation of free bus service here we are.
School is not supposed to mimic an adult work day thankfully.. so your work hours should have no bearing on school hours. I worked 6-6 yesterday and today and I’m off tomorrow and Thursday. I pay for childcare.

How stupid we are!
We should all have morning nannies for our kids so they can sleep in.

Wasn’t calling anyone stupid. We also don’t have a nanny. Spouse works 4-midnight so we only pay for after school care 10 days a month. We have a sitter and pay her well because we know they’re hard to find. My point is that school can’t cater to everyone’s work schedules and neither is it supposed to.

There are going to be exceptions to everything but I strongly disagree with this mindset.

If we want more engaged parents (objectively leads to better outcomes), want more people able to afford kids (I think we do, some may debate this), and want better mental health and outcomes for the students then it stands to reason that schools would cater to the majority of job working hours (roughly 9-5).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The studies have shown that early bed times don't help, they actually need to start later. And the homework being so onerous sounds like the real problem here, would love to hear why it's even necessary in this day and age.

They have taken homework away. It’s only 10% of the grade so many kids skip it since they don’t mind taking the hit.

You know what result is? Kids are struggling to pass tests and they’re unprepared for college, where homework is expected of them. You live in fantasyland.

Based on what evidence are they less prepared for college? Homework isn't required/expected in most college classes; it's way more about exams and papers.

Homework is required in most classes in college. I don’t know where you’re pulling this non fact from.

In terms of evidence kids today are unprepared for college, take your pick:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/prospective-college-students-increasingly-say-they-feel-unprepared-for-higher-education#:~:text=Twenty%2Dtwo%20percent%20of%20respondents,students%20said%20they%20felt%20unprepared.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/us/covid-college-students.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://nypost.com/2022/10/04/many-nyc-public-school-grads-arent-ready-for-college-comptroller/amp/

https://theconversation.com/declines-in-math-readiness-underscore-the-urgency-of-math-awareness-202691

All of these articles are about Covid's impact. Nothing to do with homework