2023-24 draft calendar scenarios to be reviewed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I favor options A or D because I'd rather have a slightly shorter summer and more days during the winter. Days less useful over Thanksgiving so not into option B. I'd probably prefer a mix of A and D -- extra days in February, not winter break, but with the school year running earlier.

Yes, exactly. I want an August 21st start date, normal Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks, a mini break sometime other than the holidays, and to get out June 14th — which is not one of the options.

Then C is what comes the closest. It just starts the 23rd instead of the 21st. Everything else is as you said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I favor options A or D because I'd rather have a slightly shorter summer and more days during the winter. Days less useful over Thanksgiving so not into option B. I'd probably prefer a mix of A and D -- extra days in February, not winter break, but with the school year running earlier.

Yes, exactly. I want an August 21st start date, normal Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks, a mini break sometime other than the holidays, and to get out June 14th — which is not one of the options.

Realizing scenario D claims to offer a February mini break but doesn’t seem to offer additional days relative to the other calendars? Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I favor options A or D because I'd rather have a slightly shorter summer and more days during the winter. Days less useful over Thanksgiving so not into option B. I'd probably prefer a mix of A and D -- extra days in February, not winter break, but with the school year running earlier.

Yes, exactly. I want an August 21st start date, normal Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks, a mini break sometime other than the holidays, and to get out June 14th — which is not one of the options.

Realizing scenario D claims to offer a February mini break but doesn’t seem to offer additional days relative to the other calendars? Am I missing something?

Didn’t mean that to be a reply to you specifically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have option D ending on Tuesday June 18th now. I think that's too late. June 14th should be the last day.

Agreed. I tried to put that into my comments on the survey. I’d rather end June 14 than have the extra February days off. I’m. annoyed there wasn’t a “normal” calendar option; each one had some change compared to what has been done for the last several years.

I’m sure they did this on purpose and will sell it as being “innovative” while also claiming ignorance about the staffing shortages.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Sticking with option D. Also known as basically the calendar we’ve been using.

+1

3/4 scenarios are different and move us away from what we've been doing. It seems like they want to move to an earlier start date. That makes sense to me; no learning happens after Memorial Day, and test scores right now are even more abysmal than normal.

That might be true in some classes or schools, but is not true of all.

In my experience, when you shift the dates to avoid an undesired behavior, the behavior just moves to a different date. I’m a dinosaur who had kids in MCPS back when there was school on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. People pulled their kids out at noon so MCPS made Wed a half day. Then people started skipping Wednesday all together. Then, we didn’t have school on Wednesday at all so people started pulling their kids out at noon on Tuesday. Now Tuesday is a half day and last year, many people skipped that day altogether.

It would make more sense to require a substantial project or assessment the first week or eight days in June if you want to enforce learning after Memorial Day.

DP. I get your point but I think part of this issue is that statewide and national standardized testing tends to happen in May. It's not every class, but for those that are somewhat test-driven, the curriculum is squeezed in before relevant May dates and there's often little to do afterward.

(I'm new to Maryland and my kids are young if I'm missing anything, but that's my general perception.)

I am an AP teacher and every year I comment on this. It is an absolute shame that some teachers and parents think it is OK to waste a large proportion of the school year "because the kids and I have worked hard and deserve a break." As if the test itself was the point, instead of learning. Based on the teacher groups that I am in, I would estimate that 75% of AP teachers just show movies after the exam. So sad. All of these classes cover so much ground during the year and force us to rush, so these kids would really benefit from going in-depth on interesting topics. For example, after the exam in my AP US GoPo class, we did Case Studies on property rights/eminent domain; fascism; federalism and the New Deal, and the Patriot Act and NSA Surveillance. We also did a couple of field trips. Parents should push back on this laziness...

I agree with you but also see that there are really mental health effects to cramming a 9-10 month class into 8 months, and kids need a little break after that—so yes to interesting discussions but no to massive writing assignments or a ton of outside reading/homework. My kid is also going to try to do some college visits after APs—she refuses to take jay days off until after the exams, and also will be studying through winter and spring break. It really is a grind trying to get ready for all those tests in may — I think she has 5. As a teacher, you might not see what this looks from the perspective of sleep/relaxation/socialization, but it is really tough on the students to cram that material into an abbreviated period.

Trust me, as a teacher of AP exams for 15 years and the mother of four who each entered college with 30-40 credits, I understand what is involved. Your child's "break" will be three months long; they just have to wait a few more weeks. If you are concerned about her mental health, perhaps she shouldn't take five exams in one year.

Alas, many colleges don't give APs credit any more. They just use them for prereqs.

So we’re going to plan an entire school system’s calendar around AP exams, that zero K-8 students take, only some HS students take, and the scores don’t earn them college credit anyway? We’re going to eliminate a week of summer in August so Larlo satisfies a few college prerequisites? That doesn’t seem like a compelling reason.

Don’t worry, Larlo can have his extra week of summer at the end of the school year. Ocean City will still be there in June.

Not if MCPS inserts a dumb entire week off for Thanksgiving. Also, pretty sure staff do not want to start pre-service a week early.

That matters for the teachers who have to work summers and do camps, lawn care, lifeguard, or bartend at resorts. Once I stopped working summers, I didn’t care when preservice was because honestly, I had some useless MCPS training at least one day of six weeks out of the eight anyway.

Exactly. And don’t complain when your summer pool club closes before Labor Day because they don’t have the lifeguard staff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have option D ending on Tuesday June 18th now. I think that's too late. June 14th should be the last day.

Agreed. They already put PD days on some religious holidays and not others. They can easily find 2 days to end June 14

[Anonymous]

Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

They have the ability to add them to the end of the year, but that is never decided until around late March or April. There are other days scattered throughout the calendar that could also be used as make-up days. But again, they will only be in April or later. There was talk last year about having virtual at-home days instead of cancelling school on snow days. They have not actually done that yet, but they have the option to now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

They have the ability to add them to the end of the year, but that is never decided until around late March or April. There are other days scattered throughout the calendar that could also be used as make-up days. But again, they will only be in April or later. There was talk last year about having virtual at-home days instead of cancelling school on snow days. They have not actually done that yet, but they have the option to now.

+1. There’s no real answer. There are two extra days built in. The days marked PD/M are coded as possible make up days. They mainly hope it won’t snow. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually does at least a little. They need to get permission from the state to waive days if we have an extended blizzard or something. Hogan said no last time MoCo asked bc he had a whole chest puffing match with Elrich. That year we did add to the end of the year, but it’s not usually the case. They may or may not use virtual. I think they would actually like to, but can’t get a pulse on just how many teachers and families would throw a fit and whether the state would count it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

They have the ability to add them to the end of the year, but that is never decided until around late March or April. There are other days scattered throughout the calendar that could also be used as make-up days. But again, they will only be in April or later. There was talk last year about having virtual at-home days instead of cancelling school on snow days. They have not actually done that yet, but they have the option to now.

+1. There’s no real answer. There are two extra days built in. The days marked PD/M are coded as possible make up days. They mainly hope it won’t snow. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually does at least a little. They need to get permission from the state to waive days if we have an extended blizzard or something. Hogan said no last time MoCo asked bc he had a whole chest puffing match with Elrich. That year we did add to the end of the year, but it’s not usually the case. They may or may not use virtual. I think they would actually like to, but can’t get a pulse on just how many teachers and families would throw a fit and whether the state would count it.

I don't think the state will waive days this year b/c the state is allowing counties to have 3 asynchronous learning days for inclement weather and MCPS has not said they're doing it. Other counties already published their plans for those 3 asynchronous days, if needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

They have the ability to add them to the end of the year, but that is never decided until around late March or April. There are other days scattered throughout the calendar that could also be used as make-up days. But again, they will only be in April or later. There was talk last year about having virtual at-home days instead of cancelling school on snow days. They have not actually done that yet, but they have the option to now.

+1. There’s no real answer. There are two extra days built in. The days marked PD/M are coded as possible make up days. They mainly hope it won’t snow. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually does at least a little. They need to get permission from the state to waive days if we have an extended blizzard or something. Hogan said no last time MoCo asked bc he had a whole chest puffing match with Elrich. That year we did add to the end of the year, but it’s not usually the case. They may or may not use virtual. I think they would actually like to, but can’t get a pulse on just how many teachers and families would throw a fit and whether the state would count it.

Ohhh, so Option D features a February mini break because those dates aren’t coded as potential make ups like on other calendars.

[Anonymous]

Option D please!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

They have the ability to add them to the end of the year, but that is never decided until around late March or April. There are other days scattered throughout the calendar that could also be used as make-up days. But again, they will only be in April or later. There was talk last year about having virtual at-home days instead of cancelling school on snow days. They have not actually done that yet, but they have the option to now.

+1. There’s no real answer. There are two extra days built in. The days marked PD/M are coded as possible make up days. They mainly hope it won’t snow. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually does at least a little. They need to get permission from the state to waive days if we have an extended blizzard or something. Hogan said no last time MoCo asked bc he had a whole chest puffing match with Elrich. That year we did add to the end of the year, but it’s not usually the case. They may or may not use virtual. I think they would actually like to, but can’t get a pulse on just how many teachers and families would throw a fit and whether the state would count it.

Even if it doesn't snow, we get "snow" days for the threat of snow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Option D please!!!

You want kids in school until Tuesday, June 18th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for such a newbie question but my kid is rising K — how do they handle snow days? Do those add to the year?

They have the ability to add them to the end of the year, but that is never decided until around late March or April. There are other days scattered throughout the calendar that could also be used as make-up days. But again, they will only be in April or later. There was talk last year about having virtual at-home days instead of cancelling school on snow days. They have not actually done that yet, but they have the option to now.

+1. There’s no real answer. There are two extra days built in. The days marked PD/M are coded as possible make up days. They mainly hope it won’t snow. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually does at least a little. They need to get permission from the state to waive days if we have an extended blizzard or something. Hogan said no last time MoCo asked bc he had a whole chest puffing match with Elrich. That year we did add to the end of the year, but it’s not usually the case. They may or may not use virtual. I think they would actually like to, but can’t get a pulse on just how many teachers and families would throw a fit and whether the state would count it.

No, they need to provide enough days of education so that if they lose a couple to a snow storm, they don't deprive kids of their legally mandated time in school. Why are you so cavalier when a huge number of kids are so behind? If going to school doesn't matter for several days, then you should apply pressure on the school system to step it up and MAKE it matter.