12/5 BOE meeting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was really confused by the Brenda and the board's pushback with Dana about the transition day being or not being a full-day. It seemed like they had information that wasn't included in the presentation materials.

During all of the previous meetings on the calendar, the transition day was understood to be a full day, but then during yesterday's meeting Dana Edwards said they had recently decided to change it to early release. Wolff and Rivera-Oven were not in favor of this decision being made after the public surveys had all been conducted with the full transition day mentioned, so Wolff put forward an amendment to approve the calendar with the transition day but stating that the transition day would be a full day, and the amendment passed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was really confused by the Brenda and the board's pushback with Dana about the transition day being or not being a full-day. It seemed like they had information that wasn't included in the presentation materials.

During all of the previous meetings on the calendar, the transition day was understood to be a full day, but then during yesterday's meeting Dana Edwards said they had recently decided to change it to early release. Wolff and Rivera-Oven were not in favor of this decision being made after the public surveys had all been conducted with the full transition day mentioned, so Wolff put forward an amendment to approve the calendar with the transition day but stating that the transition day would be a full day, and the amendment passed.

I get their point, but I also get the point of wanting to see it start for K and as a mandate at half a day first. Especially since folks already raised concern about what are other teachers and staff supposed to be doing while the focus is on kids they don’t have. And while I get the working parent concern, then I would say see if daycare could be offered to deal with the other half of day. I truly get how annoying and inconvenient half days are, but I also get that the school system can’t always accommodate everyone’s schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone get why the transition day is moving to Monday? If a bunch of secondary schools are already doing this work on the Thursday before, why not just mandate all transition grades to host it the Thursday prior and give notice in the Spring?

It sounds like Taylor is insisting because that’s how they did it in his old district. Agree that we don’t need it here. We already have a system that works. And next year we are only building in 1 snow day, which means school will go later than scheduled most likely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone get why the transition day is moving to Monday? If a bunch of secondary schools are already doing this work on the Thursday before, why not just mandate all transition grades to host it the Thursday prior and give notice in the Spring?

It sounds like Taylor is insisting because that’s how they did it in his old district. Agree that we don’t need it here. We already have a system that works. And next year we are only building in 1 snow day, which means school will go later than scheduled most likely.

We already have an orientation day. He's trying to spin MCPS to his own so he can claim he made some great changes when they are really fluff.

[Anonymous]

If this is the big change he's bringing, boy are we in trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this is the big change he's bringing, boy are we in trouble.

Don’t forget all of the funny videos!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is the big change he's bringing, boy are we in trouble.

Don’t forget all of the funny videos!

I find it odd how admin complain about kids online/social media but they use social media and post kids.

[Anonymous]

Doing the orientation on Thursday impacted family vacations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doing the orientation on Thursday impacted family vacations.

Go figure folks have to show up when school is starting and not when is most convenient. All MCPS needs to do is announce the date of orientation as Thursday or Friday and first day of school as Monday. If the family vacation is more important than your kid showing up for orientation, then that’s on them. Folks don’t get to complain about jitters, support, adjustment time when an opportunity was provided and they chose not to attend. There are plenty of other weeks in summer to choose from.

[Anonymous]

Again, I still do not understand: If this "transition day" is for K, 6 and 9, new transfer students or special education students, what is the guidance for all of the teachers and students for whom that DOES NOT apply to? Stay home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, I still do not understand: If this "transition day" is for K, 6 and 9, new transfer students or special education students, what is the guidance for all of the teachers and students for whom that DOES NOT apply to? Stay home?

That was exactly the question the teachers had which is why CO came to the BOE meeting saying to make it only a half day and then get some feedback to determine if it needed or should be a whole day. There was balking at that because some working parents might have to take off half a day or find childcare for that half a day. SO now everyone has to brainstorm a whole day and still await guidance on what everyone else is supposed to be doing.

I can’t wait to hear how some of the student groups feel about folks wanting them to essentially do first day of school activities two days in a row.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, I still do not understand: If this "transition day" is for K, 6 and 9, new transfer students or special education students, what is the guidance for all of the teachers and students for whom that DOES NOT apply to? Stay home?

That was exactly the question the teachers had which is why CO came to the BOE meeting saying to make it only a half day and then get some feedback to determine if it needed or should be a whole day. There was balking at that because some working parents might have to take off half a day or find childcare for that half a day. SO now everyone has to brainstorm a whole day and still await guidance on what everyone else is supposed to be doing.

I can’t wait to hear how some of the student groups feel about folks wanting them to essentially do first day of school activities two days in a row.

Yes, this was something I put in the survey comments. If the transition day is going to have a pep rally, an activities fair, etc, wouldn't they also want to do those same things for the returning students the next day or at least sometime that week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, I still do not understand: If this "transition day" is for K, 6 and 9, new transfer students or special education students, what is the guidance for all of the teachers and students for whom that DOES NOT apply to? Stay home?

That was exactly the question the teachers had which is why CO came to the BOE meeting saying to make it only a half day and then get some feedback to determine if it needed or should be a whole day. There was balking at that because some working parents might have to take off half a day or find childcare for that half a day. SO now everyone has to brainstorm a whole day and still await guidance on what everyone else is supposed to be doing.

I can’t wait to hear how some of the student groups feel about folks wanting them to essentially do first day of school activities two days in a row.

The whole thing seems poorly thought out. Despite Dana Edwards and her team having months to think through this stuff since they got this feedback from parents, teachers and students around confusion of the purpose of the transition day over and over again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, I still do not understand: If this "transition day" is for K, 6 and 9, new transfer students or special education students, what is the guidance for all of the teachers and students for whom that DOES NOT apply to? Stay home?

That was exactly the question the teachers had which is why CO came to the BOE meeting saying to make it only a half day and then get some feedback to determine if it needed or should be a whole day. There was balking at that because some working parents might have to take off half a day or find childcare for that half a day. SO now everyone has to brainstorm a whole day and still await guidance on what everyone else is supposed to be doing.

I can’t wait to hear how some of the student groups feel about folks wanting them to essentially do first day of school activities two days in a row.

Yes, this was something I put in the survey comments. If the transition day is going to have a pep rally, an activities fair, etc, wouldn't they also want to do those same things for the returning students the next day or at least sometime that week?

For 6th and 9th they've always had a 1/2 before school started. This isn't anything new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, I still do not understand: If this "transition day" is for K, 6 and 9, new transfer students or special education students, what is the guidance for all of the teachers and students for whom that DOES NOT apply to? Stay home?

That was exactly the question the teachers had which is why CO came to the BOE meeting saying to make it only a half day and then get some feedback to determine if it needed or should be a whole day. There was balking at that because some working parents might have to take off half a day or find childcare for that half a day. SO now everyone has to brainstorm a whole day and still await guidance on what everyone else is supposed to be doing.

I can’t wait to hear how some of the student groups feel about folks wanting them to essentially do first day of school activities two days in a row.

The whole thing seems poorly thought out. Despite Dana Edwards and her team having months to think through this stuff since they got this feedback from parents, teachers and students around confusion of the purpose of the transition day over and over again.

I think it’s funny (but not funny) that Dana Edward’s and her team are catching blame when changing the day was then Superintendent’s idea and Edward’s and her team tried to get the board to accept it being a half day noting that many schools had traditions and they wanted to get data about how half a day went.