Yes, but you missed the chance to testify on next year's calendar too. When the 2027-2028 calendar comes up in fall 2026 you should testify, put together petitions, contact board members, or do whatever else you feel is necessary to try to influence the calendar the way you want it before they vote in December 2026. Anything after that is too little too late. |
| The state legislature is going to vote on using hours instead of days. This will be in an emergency session coming up very soon. My bet is that this passes (already passed ways and means committee unanimously), and school ends on June 18 (before Juneteenth). |
DP Um I raised this issue in the survey, as I am sure many others did too because they added useless half days last year too. This is a choice that MCPS and the BOE makes intentionally knowing full well the consequences, and that is on them. |
When is that vote? |
Current Status: A "Favorable with Amendments Report" was issued by the Ways and Means Committee on February 20, 2026. Next Steps: Following a favorable committee report, the bill is expected to head to the House floor for a second and third reading, which includes a final vote. A specific date for the final floor vote has not been scheduled as of Feb 20, 2026, but it will likely occur in the coming days or weeks of the 2026 Regular Session. |
This. Where were the county council members and advocacy groups when the calendar was being discussed/March 20 was proposed as a snow make-up date? That was the time to raise that issue. |
Yes I want to write and make sure that doesn’t happen. MCPS is already cheating kids on the number of instructional days. If it had only instructional hours to go on, kids would never be in school. |
Yeah but it’s a little touchy. Take Eid. I think it’s legitimately an important holiday to those who celebrate. I don’t celebrate it personally but am sensitive to how it feels to not be in the majority. But on the other hand, the number of students and staff who do celebrate is small from an operational standpoint. There are 30,000 Muslims in MoCo out of 1 million and many are not school age or enrolled in mcps. You probably get more absences on 12/23 but we still open schools on that date. We will definitely have more absences on June 25 & 26 than we would have if we switched 3/20 to a school day or even a half day. But who am I to say how you determine the priority? |
Unfortunately the legislation doesn’t appear to refer to instructional hours, only scheduled school hours. This is why MCPS can say its hours exceed the minimum. |
Year round school |
That's because the law already states the minimum is 1080 hours. Everyone complaining that MCPS should manage more like Fairfax with a bunch of extra snow days built in, this is how Fairfax does it. VA only requires 990 hours. At least get your complaints straight. |
Yep. Summer vacation is too long anyway and leads to brain drain. The school year as it is is super stressful for teens, and it would be nice to have longer breaks during the year. Camps for childcare can adjust to offering them during those long breaks every quarter. It would be so much better for our mental health. |
For that to happen, they’d have already had to have around 10+ absences, so unless they are undergoing some type of cancer treatment or similar, that would be a parenting fail. |
Calm down. |
Not happening. |