Do charter schools really need early dismissal Wednesdays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis isGeorge says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

She really is the worst

Are you surprised? She has built her career on pandering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will say I am not at a charter school that does this, so maybe I’m missing something. But we did visit several schools like this and had them on our lottery list. All of them said if you were in aftercare, aftercare just took the kids early on Wednesday. So, there wasn’t an impact on the parents, and the kids got some additional free play time with their friends each week. What is the problem with this? What am I missing?

If your family routine does not include aftercare, you're screwed for the half days. You drop your kid off and are right back there 3.5 hours later and lose out on the full day of school while you're working. For us, we don't want to opt in for aftercare on chaotic longer half days. The families who are in it at our charter do not seem happy with it, but resigned that it's the option available. we make do with shared afternoon playdates when possible, but it's a real pain.

Except ... you chose this. So, "screwed" is a really strange way to say "we selected this to avoid certain kinds of children and now we don't like it"

unless you chose the school before they adopted this schedule. wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will say I am not at a charter school that does this, so maybe I’m missing something. But we did visit several schools like this and had them on our lottery list. All of them said if you were in aftercare, aftercare just took the kids early on Wednesday. So, there wasn’t an impact on the parents, and the kids got some additional free play time with their friends each week. What is the problem with this? What am I missing?

If your family routine does not include aftercare, you're screwed for the half days. You drop your kid off and are right back there 3.5 hours later and lose out on the full day of school while you're working. For us, we don't want to opt in for aftercare on chaotic longer half days. The families who are in it at our charter do not seem happy with it, but resigned that it's the option available. we make do with shared afternoon playdates when possible, but it's a real pain.

Except ... you chose this. So, "screwed" is a really strange way to say "we selected this to avoid certain kinds of children and now we don't like it"

Yeah, one reason we didn't choose charters for elementary is because I found the wednesday half day thing to be really weird. we did go charter in middle school but they have full 5 day weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis George says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

Wait, did she really say that???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a pain to make sure your child is picked up or has aftercare every Wednesday due to early dismissal. There has to be a better way. At least traditional public schools take one full day off periodically for whatever. Stop the early dismissal days. Each day should end the same time.

This may be a stupid question since my kids are at their local DC public school, but what do you mean by early dismissal every Wednesday? Is this every week, and if so, what time do they get out? What is the goal of doing this from the school's perspective?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of charters don't actually provide 180 days of instruction per the law. They use accounting tricks to make partial days look like full days.

It's the same with DCPS. Early release days are counted as full instructional days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of charters don't actually provide 180 days of instruction per the law. They use accounting tricks to make partial days look like full days.

It's the same with DCPS. Early release days are counted as full instructional days.

Except DCPS does not do early release days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of charters don't actually provide 180 days of instruction per the law. They use accounting tricks to make partial days look like full days.

Yeah, as long as lunch is served, you can count it as a full day! Even if you dismiss at noon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis isGeorge says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

She really is the worst

Are you surprised? She has built her career on pandering.

I’m not all that excited by either of the leading candidates but this is a bad take at an attack when the other guy is dictionary definition of pandering, his team can’t even keep the platform talking points aligned.

If you think the city is doing fine and want more of the same, including on education, then congrats on being able to confidently vote for bowser 2.0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis isGeorge says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

She really is the worst

Are you surprised? She has built her career on pandering.

I’m not all that excited by either of the leading candidates but this is a bad take at an attack when the other guy is dictionary definition of pandering, his team can’t even keep the platform talking points aligned.

If you think the city is doing fine and want more of the same, including on education, then congrats on being able to confidently vote for bowser 2.0.

No to derail this thread, but I'd take more of the same over worse any day of the week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis isGeorge says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

She really is the worst

You all are really the worst. I am a teacher, she has made no such promises nor have we asked for such a thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis isGeorge says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

She really is the worst

Are you surprised? She has built her career on pandering.

I’m not all that excited by either of the leading candidates but this is a bad take at an attack when the other guy is dictionary definition of pandering, his team can’t even keep the platform talking points aligned.

If you think the city is doing fine and want more of the same, including on education, then congrats on being able to confidently vote for bowser 2.0.

Exactly, they are literally talking about Duffy who has not done anything for schools in his tenure.
He is the flip flopper. Went from Independent to Democrat, said he’d keep the chancellor then said he’d fire him, said he wants more AI then said we’ll limit some until we find a ‘good one’ the list goes on.

You want the status quo, Duff is your choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a pain to make sure your child is picked up or has aftercare every Wednesday due to early dismissal. There has to be a better way. At least traditional public schools take one full day off periodically for whatever. Stop the early dismissal days. Each day should end the same time.

This may be a stupid question since my kids are at their local DC public school, but what do you mean by early dismissal every Wednesday? Is this every week, and if so, what time do they get out? What is the goal of doing this from the school's perspective?

It’s fantastic because the school has aftercare. It’s for professional development for the teachers.

Unlike DCPS which schedules random days off during the year, like 10 I think for PD and parents are forced to take vacation days to cover since hardly any single random day camps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis isGeorge says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

She really is the worst

Are you surprised? She has built her career on pandering.

I’m not all that excited by either of the leading candidates but this is a bad take at an attack when the other guy is dictionary definition of pandering, his team can’t even keep the platform talking points aligned.

If you think the city is doing fine and want more of the same, including on education, then congrats on being able to confidently vote for bowser 2.0.

Exactly, they are literally talking about Duffy who has not done anything for schools in his tenure.
He is the flip flopper. Went from Independent to Democrat, said he’d keep the chancellor then said he’d fire him, said he wants more AI then said we’ll limit some until we find a ‘good one’ the list goes on.

You want the status quo, Duff is your choice.

Janeese wants to reduce classtime because she is sucking up to the teachers union. That seems much worse than the status quo. There are already way too many PD days. These kids are never in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janeese Lewis George says she wants to give teachers more professional development days, so if she's elected, expect even more time out of school.

Wait, did she really say that???

No, I don't think she did, but I think I know how this misinformation came to be:
1) In some survey (I think the WTU survey), Lewis George said she supported "more differentiated professional development" ...if you read it, you can tell it means "professional development that is differentiated better" not "more professional development"
2) Matt Yglesias then tweeted a screenshot of it and said something along the lines of: Lewis George is calling for less classroom time
3) People then accepted his totally incorrect reading of it and retweeted it saying oh no she wants less class time

The bottom lines are: Lewis George didn't advocate for less classroom time - Matt Yglesias made that up, and if you're annoyed about half-day Wednesdays, that is not actually a mayoral issue because the mayor is over DCPS but doesn't set policies like that for charters and only charters do half-day Wednesdays.