Has your ES announced any programs etc. for Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Why would it be feral? I am assuming it will be similar to indoor recess (board games, computers, drawing) and hoping kids get taken to playground or gym in shifts. My guess is there will be a few classrooms of similarly aged kids.

Anonymous wrote:They've sent out a survey asking everyone if they need help with aftercare. No word on how they are going to do it. I'm assuming it's going to be a feral free-for-all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would it be feral? I am assuming it will be similar to indoor recess (board games, computers, drawing) and hoping kids get taken to playground or gym in shifts. My guess is there will be a few classrooms of similarly aged kids.

Anonymous wrote:They've sent out a survey asking everyone if they need help with aftercare. No word on how they are going to do it. I'm assuming it's going to be a feral free-for-all.

These days school overall feels feral-now you are putting a lot of kids together with one or two adults that don't regularly interact with them during an unstructured time. But every school is doing it differently so ask questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

And just to add— if they decided instead to add paid teacher days and up the salary $1,000 that would also be a great choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

And just to add— if they decided instead to add paid teacher days and up the salary $1,000 that would also be a great choice.

What would be the cost to FCPS? If there are 50 per ES that need the training and there are 140 elementary schools, that’s $7 million. That’s at $1k per person, but the average would probably be higher than that. Then we’d have to add extra in insurance and retirement contributions for the extra days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

Apparently there are, because that’s how they’re getting away with taking away the 21 instructional hours:

https://www.fcps.edu/family-resources/safety-and-transportation/limited-early-release-mondays


“The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

And just to add— if they decided instead to add paid teacher days and up the salary $1,000 that would also be a great choice.

What would be the cost to FCPS? If there are 50 per ES that need the training and there are 140 elementary schools, that’s $7 million. That’s at $1k per person, but the average would probably be higher than that. Then we’d have to add extra in insurance and retirement contributions for the extra days.

They’re already getting millions from the state to combat the absenteeism issue. Maybe they ask for a bigger budget next year. It will probably be a lot more popular if they hadn’t just wrecked thousands of parents schedules. For each teacher in your math, multiply by 25 parents and the total economic cost of this plan is significantly higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

Apparently there are, because that’s how they’re getting away with taking away the 21 instructional hours:

https://www.fcps.edu/family-resources/safety-and-transportation/limited-early-release-mondays


“The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days.”

That’s because they are still in school those days. They are only reducing the extra hours by 3 each day. They don’t have full days to use. They can’t drop the student calendar to 177 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

Apparently there are, because that’s how they’re getting away with taking away the 21 instructional hours:

https://www.fcps.edu/family-resources/safety-and-transportation/limited-early-release-mondays


“The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days.”

That’s because they are still in school those days. They are only reducing the extra hours by 3 each day. They don’t have full days to use. They can’t drop the student calendar to 177 days.

the extra hours come to 21 instructional hours— three days. They have days built in to the school calendar in case there is snow, which they have removed now to cover these hours. If there are multiple snow days FFX will be at school late. Better for everyone if we took them as full days— which is what all the surrounding districts did, it’s only FFX acting like this was imposed on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

Apparently there are, because that’s how they’re getting away with taking away the 21 instructional hours:

https://www.fcps.edu/family-resources/safety-and-transportation/limited-early-release-mondays


“The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days.”

That’s because they are still in school those days. They are only reducing the extra hours by 3 each day. They don’t have full days to use. They can’t drop the student calendar to 177 days.

the extra hours come to 21 instructional hours— three days. They have days built in to the school calendar in case there is snow, which they have removed now to cover these hours. If there are multiple snow days FFX will be at school late. Better for everyone if we took them as full days— which is what all the surrounding districts did, it’s only FFX acting like this was imposed on them.

Yes. I understand. 21 hours or 3 hours a day over 7 days. They have to have at least 180 student days on the calendar. They can’t just take 3 days off the student calendar and schedule 177. Fairfax has extra hours built into the schedule but not actual extra days. They really could do better at their messaging on this.

Maybe other districts had extra days beyond 180 that they could switch to staff development days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

Apparently there are, because that’s how they’re getting away with taking away the 21 instructional hours:

https://www.fcps.edu/family-resources/safety-and-transportation/limited-early-release-mondays


“The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days.”

That’s because they are still in school those days. They are only reducing the extra hours by 3 each day. They don’t have full days to use. They can’t drop the student calendar to 177 days.

the extra hours come to 21 instructional hours— three days. They have days built in to the school calendar in case there is snow, which they have removed now to cover these hours. If there are multiple snow days FFX will be at school late. Better for everyone if we took them as full days— which is what all the surrounding districts did, it’s only FFX acting like this was imposed on them.

Yes. I understand. 21 hours or 3 hours a day over 7 days. They have to have at least 180 student days on the calendar. They can’t just take 3 days off the student calendar and schedule 177. Fairfax has extra hours built into the schedule but not actual extra days. They really could do better at their messaging on this.

Maybe other districts had extra days beyond 180 that they could switch to staff development days.

I don’t buy this excuse because it doesn’t address the other common-sense option of doing early dismissal ahead of planned vacations. No one would have minded an extra half day to get a jump on Thanksgiving traffic or making Veteran's day weekend start at lunchtime Friday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG it's a few hours! Just deal with it and let the kids play outside or read!

You are making so many assumptions that every families' situation is just like yours

+1

The National average for paid time off is something like 17 days per year. Yeah this is a wealthy area but imagine thinking it’s acceptable to tell parents half their days off this year needs to be about teacher training days— hope you didn’t want to see family, and you and your kids don’t get sick! FCPS needs those early dismissals.

When I had children, I realized and accepted that my days off would be about them, whether that be for their illnesses, their appointments, or their days off school. My children are my priority.

I feel bad for the teachers because I know the early release days are not enough for them to get their training completed. My sister teaches in FCPS and she told me about the 30 hours of literacy training all teachers have to do in addition to the multiple days of training they had to do over the summer and the 20 hours of other training they had to do the first week back to work.

I foresee teachers taking time off to get work done. It's really the only way these days. My last year of teaching many around me were using their own personal time to get work done. Good for them. It's too much.

I think you're correct that teachers will take time off just to get their work completed. It's unfortunate for our kids, but the teachers have to do what is best for them and their mental health. It's wrong that they should have to use their personal time for their job requirements, though. It sounds like the system is broken beyond repair and that good teachers will be driven out by the job requirements. Terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen people, you just need to get over it. Your whining isn't going to change anything.

Make wise choices when it’s time for school board elections. Ask candidates what they plan to do to support parents. Listen carefully to the answers.

Support parents?

When I vote school board, I vote for individuals who will support education , not individuals who will support me as a parent. It isn't about me as a parent; it's about what is best for all our children as students. Not just MY child, but ALL children.

Expecting the school board to be focused on parents sounds like the viewpoint of a toddler, not an adult. "Why won't they support meeeeeee?"

yes! This attitude is one of the issues in schools-parents expecting the school to parent for them.

Nope, I don’t want the school to parent for me. I want them to respect the time and resources of the parents since those are the most tightly tied to student outcomes. They should have done outreach to parents as Loudon and Arlington did and we would have wound up where Loudon and Arlington did— three days off attached to existing vacations.

LOL

You’re going to laugh all the way to another Republican governor and school board.

Not me I'm blue all the way! How about you? Actually I'm not sure what you are rambling about.

When schools ignored parents over COVID return to the classroom, it got Youngkin elected. That’s why some constituencies were so careful to engage parents and— omg!— support parents in this. FCPS didn’t.

What is not supporting parents? The schools are keeping any kid that their parent can't have at home for the 3 hour early release days. The goal post is now what is my kid going to do for those 3 hours. FCPS is going to baby sit your kids how is that not supporting parents?

Sitting a 4-5 year old in front of a computer for three hours is not developmentally appropriate care— forget education, it’s not even appropriate care. A babysitter would be fired.

But schools are not babysitters-they are not daycare.

I agree, what they should be doing is actually teaching children on school days and adding days off to train teachers.
However they want to call these half days “school days” so they should be responsible for more than developmentally inappropriate supervision.

Friends of ours just reached out to request the lesson plans for each of these “school days” since they will be going out of town where she has family so she can still work. It will be interesting to see what instruction is planned.

Does anyone know how much that would add to the budget? Just doing quick math here, but if they added 7 more days to the contract of a teacher making $65k, it would cost $2,300 just in additional salary.

Quoting myself here. I just realized they wouldn’t need to add 7 full days. If they added 3 days it would add an additional $1k in salary for every teacher making $65k.

You don’t need to add salary— you do what AAPS and everyone else did and remove a snow day. You get the instructional hours and parents use the days off to spend time with their kids.

Other threads suggested there would be huge teacher absentee issues if they tried this but I don’t see why we should assume FCPS would have this problem but the others wouldn’t.

How would they do that? They have the minimum 180 days on the student calendar. There are no extra days to remove.

Apparently there are, because that’s how they’re getting away with taking away the 21 instructional hours:

https://www.fcps.edu/family-resources/safety-and-transportation/limited-early-release-mondays


“The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days.”

That’s because they are still in school those days. They are only reducing the extra hours by 3 each day. They don’t have full days to use. They can’t drop the student calendar to 177 days.

the extra hours come to 21 instructional hours— three days. They have days built in to the school calendar in case there is snow, which they have removed now to cover these hours. If there are multiple snow days FFX will be at school late. Better for everyone if we took them as full days— which is what all the surrounding districts did, it’s only FFX acting like this was imposed on them.

Yes. I understand. 21 hours or 3 hours a day over 7 days. They have to have at least 180 student days on the calendar. They can’t just take 3 days off the student calendar and schedule 177. Fairfax has extra hours built into the schedule but not actual extra days. They really could do better at their messaging on this.

Maybe other districts had extra days beyond 180 that they could switch to staff development days.

I don’t buy this excuse because it doesn’t address the other common-sense option of doing early dismissal ahead of planned vacations. No one would have minded an extra half day to get a jump on Thanksgiving traffic or making Veteran's day weekend start at lunchtime Friday.

What "excuse"? They can't scheduled fewer than 180 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG it's a few hours! Just deal with it and let the kids play outside or read!

You are making so many assumptions that every families' situation is just like yours

+1

The National average for paid time off is something like 17 days per year. Yeah this is a wealthy area but imagine thinking it’s acceptable to tell parents half their days off this year needs to be about teacher training days— hope you didn’t want to see family, and you and your kids don’t get sick! FCPS needs those early dismissals.

When I had children, I realized and accepted that my days off would be about them, whether that be for their illnesses, their appointments, or their days off school. My children are my priority.

I feel bad for the teachers because I know the early release days are not enough for them to get their training completed. My sister teaches in FCPS and she told me about the 30 hours of literacy training all teachers have to do in addition to the multiple days of training they had to do over the summer and the 20 hours of other training they had to do the first week back to work.

I foresee teachers taking time off to get work done. It's really the only way these days. My last year of teaching many around me were using their own personal time to get work done. Good for them. It's too much.

I think you're correct that teachers will take time off just to get their work completed. It's unfortunate for our kids, but the teachers have to do what is best for them and their mental health. It's wrong that they should have to use their personal time for their job requirements, though. It sounds like the system is broken beyond repair and that good teachers will be driven out by the job requirements. Terrible.

Unfortunately American work culture is such that virtually all professional jobs expect work during personal time. Teachers who leave the profession will not likely escape this.