Why is MCPS open this week and Fairfax is closed?
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Anonymous
But, like MCPS, AAPS had school this week (Monday and Tuesday). Howard County Public Schools had a full day yesterday and a half day today. Garrett County Public Schools would have too, but they're closed today due to weather. |
Anonymous
| But Fairfax and DC were closed this week. Agree this makes more sense. |
Anonymous
| I think Fairfax parents complain about how late schools go in June..can't win. |
Anonymous
| I suspect MCPS is likely to be sued over closing on religious holidays (deleting the names does not make a legal difference) and then they will have to compare absences as a way of justifying the current policy. My suspicion is that days like today will have just as high absences as some of the religious holidays for which school is closed. The problem with holding school this week is that for many kids/schools (though not all), the days are wasted and that is two days when little learning goes on. It is not like MCPS has more school days than other Districts, it just seems that some of their judgments are not based on maximizing learning opportunities. |
Anonymous
| Maryland is the #1 state for education so more is more here. |
Anonymous
| Arlington is also open this week, OP. Each school system makes its own schedule. |
Anonymous
| I don't know why we're not in school tomorrow. Until someone told me, I thought the kids had school. |
Anonymous
I think it's state law: Christmas Eve, Christmas, Good Friday, Easter Monday, plus some other non-religious holidays. |
Anonymous
Eh, not really. Fairfax has a slightly higher SAT score average but they also have a smaller number of AA and Hispanic kids, so the difference is probably there. Honestly, even though people bitch and complain, I just don't see that much difference in the outcomes of similar kids in the different area school systems. Fairfax: African American: 1450 Asian American: 1742 Hispanic: 1491 White: 1721 MC: African American: 1403 Asian American: 1786 Hispanic: 1461 White : 1766 There seems to be more of an achievement gap in MC vs. Fairfax, but having grown up in Fairfax (and living in MoCo now) I think that MoCo is more heterogeneous WRT income than Fairfax is. Fewer really poor areas in Fairfax. |
Anonymous
They start one week later (after Labor Day) and stay in school one week later. There is no difference. We have off Jewish holidays and too many inservice days. Most of their service days are half days. |
Anonymous
Do you mean FCPS has half-days for professional learning/in-services? If so, you are incorrect. FCPS has never had half-days for in-services. Up until this year, elementary schools had 2-hour early release every Monday. But all teacher work days and parent conference days were and still are full days off for students. Last year FCPS did go especially late into June because of having to make-up for snow days. But that ell no longer be the case because 13 "days" are built into the calendar through adding minutes to each day. FCPS could have 13 snow days and not have to make any of them up. |
Anonymous
| And Maryland only counts by days not minutes so that wouldn't work here. I believe that was MoCo argument for not making up the days last year..by time they had met the requirement. |
Anonymous
| My child said that 4 of 24 students were absent yesterday (so attendance was 83%), and 3 of the absent students were absent because they were sick. |
Anonymous
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They just distribute the days off differently. Some systems have different requirements for days off for grading, etc. which impacts the total number of "optional" days off they can fit in.
And MoCo will still get religious holidays but they just won't be called such - purely semantics. |
Anonymous
MCPS has too many low performing AAs and Hispanics. |