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

[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:

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.

Do you think Arlington and Loudon and Richmond had special magic wands that FFX wasn’t given?

[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:

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.

Do you think Arlington and Loudon and Richmond had special magic wands that FFX wasn’t given?

Loudoun gave the teachers extra professional development days that are being paid for, the students still have 180 days. Fairfax county didn’t wanna pay for those extra days of professional development. Isn’t Arlington just using the half days that are already built into the schedule?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's vastly different in other fields. I regularly work 20+ hours per week beyond contract time. When I work led in the software industry, I was incentivized and got bonuses for all my extra work. I was praised and got kudos and thanks and it was a HauGE deal if I had to work all day on a Saturday to get a proposal finished or fly to a client. I also had a lot of flexibility and comp time, so if I worked 60 hours one week, I could work a lot less the next.

I do t get compensated like that in either time, money, or praise in teaching. It is the bare minimum I have to do just to stay afloat and do a decent job. And it gets worse every year. This year may break me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's vastly different in other fields. I regularly work 20+ hours per week beyond contract time. When I work led in the software industry, I was incentivized and got bonuses for all my extra work. I was praised and got kudos and thanks and it was a HauGE deal if I had to work all day on a Saturday to get a proposal finished or fly to a client. I also had a lot of flexibility and comp time, so if I worked 60 hours one week, I could work a lot less the next.

I do t get compensated like that in either time, money, or praise in teaching. It is the bare minimum I have to do just to stay afloat and do a decent job. And it gets worse every year. This year may break me.

+1, I left teaching a few years ago for a job where I worked less and make more money. Even if I do work a few hours beyond 40 hours a week, the stress level alone is significantly different. Teaching is emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's vastly different in other fields. I regularly work 20+ hours per week beyond contract time. When I work led in the software industry, I was incentivized and got bonuses for all my extra work. I was praised and got kudos and thanks and it was a HauGE deal if I had to work all day on a Saturday to get a proposal finished or fly to a client. I also had a lot of flexibility and comp time, so if I worked 60 hours one week, I could work a lot less the next.

I do t get compensated like that in either time, money, or praise in teaching. It is the bare minimum I have to do just to stay afloat and do a decent job. And it gets worse every year. This year may break me.

+1, I left teaching a few years ago for a job where I worked less and make more money. Even if I do work a few hours beyond 40 hours a week, the stress level alone is significantly different. Teaching is emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting.

+1

I live almost an hour away from my building and will be leaving for work in about 15 minutes so I can be there at 6:00. I will work until my students arrive at 7:15.

After school, I work at the building until 4:30. After I put my kids to bed at 8:30, I almost always work again until 10:00. On the weekends, I try to keep my work to 5 hours or less, but that's not always possible. Still, I work an additional 20-30 hours each week. I see my own children a total of 15 hours from Monday-Friday.

People who are not teachers are clueless about the stress and requirements of the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's vastly different in other fields. I regularly work 20+ hours per week beyond contract time. When I work led in the software industry, I was incentivized and got bonuses for all my extra work. I was praised and got kudos and thanks and it was a HauGE deal if I had to work all day on a Saturday to get a proposal finished or fly to a client. I also had a lot of flexibility and comp time, so if I worked 60 hours one week, I could work a lot less the next.

I do t get compensated like that in either time, money, or praise in teaching. It is the bare minimum I have to do just to stay afloat and do a decent job. And it gets worse every year. This year may break me.

+1, I left teaching a few years ago for a job where I worked less and make more money. Even if I do work a few hours beyond 40 hours a week, the stress level alone is significantly different. Teaching is emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting.

+1

I live almost an hour away from my building and will be leaving for work in about 15 minutes so I can be there at 6:00. I will work until my students arrive at 7:15.

After school, I work at the building until 4:30. After I put my kids to bed at 8:30, I almost always work again until 10:00. On the weekends, I try to keep my work to 5 hours or less, but that's not always possible. Still, I work an additional 20-30 hours each week. I see my own children a total of 15 hours from Monday-Friday.

People who are not teachers are clueless about the stress and requirements of the job.

My sister is a 20+ year teacher in this area. She’s won awards at the local and national level for her work, and she’s the teacher all the parents ask the principal to be assigned to. Her tutoring rate is $250/hour and she has a wait list.

Of the two of us, I am significantly more likely to be asked to work while we’re on vacation. She is very rarely interrupted in the summer or during the Christmas holiday.

Where I think this complaint is legitimate is that the base compensation for a job like hers should be significantly higher. No one feels bad for a Big Law person working weekends and evenings because the compensation is high, teachers get paid badly and so there’s an expectation people should feel bad that they work extra.

Really we need an overhaul of the whole system that no one is working in their off time, but this isn’t the really resonant complaint.

On the other hand, a teacher who thinks a 4-5 year old belongs parked in front of a screen for three hours absolutely should be seeking work in another field because most good teachers are highly aware of how bad screens are for kids developmentally because they stay current in the early childhood ed field.

[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:

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.

Do you think Arlington and Loudon and Richmond had special magic wands that FFX wasn’t given?

No, but I’m sure they didn’t just change 3 student days into PD 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:

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.

Do you think Arlington and Loudon and Richmond had special magic wands that FFX wasn’t given?

Loudoun gave the teachers extra professional development days that are being paid for, the students still have 180 days. Fairfax county didn’t wanna pay for those extra days of professional development. Isn’t Arlington just using the half days that are already built into the schedule?

+1

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/files/D36TUL769547/$file/2024-25%20Student%20and%20Teacher%20Calendars.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They will probably get paid better- will be able to use the restroom when they need to-not have chairs thrown at them....have more respect shown to them....not sure where you are going with this comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They will probably get paid better- will be able to use the restroom when they need to-not have chairs thrown at them....have more respect shown to them....not sure where you are going with this comparison.

Simply that working in one’s personal time is a (problematic) reality of American work culture.

I can see leaving teaching because of the abysmal pay and certainly the risk of things like school shootings but a teacher who leaves and expects to never work a Saturday will likely be disappointed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They will probably get paid better- will be able to use the restroom when they need to-not have chairs thrown at them....have more respect shown to them....not sure where you are going with this comparison.

Simply that working in one’s personal time is a (problematic) reality of American work culture.

I can see leaving teaching because of the abysmal pay and certainly the risk of things like school shootings but a teacher who leaves and expects to never work a Saturday will likely be disappointed.

You harping on this let's us know you have never been in teaching. Working extra is not the issue. And it's not just shootings-it's the day to day threats, chaos, and disrespect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

They will probably get paid better- will be able to use the restroom when they need to-not have chairs thrown at them....have more respect shown to them....not sure where you are going with this comparison.

Simply that working in one’s personal time is a (problematic) reality of American work culture.

I can see leaving teaching because of the abysmal pay and certainly the risk of things like school shootings but a teacher who leaves and expects to never work a Saturday will likely be disappointed.

You harping on this let's us know you have never been in teaching. Working extra is not the issue. And it's not just shootings-it's the day to day threats, chaos, and disrespect.

You say working extra isn’t the issues. Posters above you say it’s the issue. Sorry people feel differently to you and I’m responding to them, an Internet forum isn’t curated to only be about you I’m afraid.

[Anonymous]

There is no programming. Kids will be mixed and put into rooms with any available adult. Our kids are better off at home on early release Mondays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no programming. Kids will be mixed and put into rooms with any available adult. Our kids are better off at home on early release Mondays.

Which of course was the point. Claim to have programming, then make it so awful and inappropriate that only the most desperate families have to take you up on it.

And then keep it in place next year.

[Anonymous]

The end of October/beginning of November is going to chaos. I’m just booking a trip and pulling my kids out. We can travel 10/26-11/6 and only miss two days of schools.

Monday 10/28 - ER
Thursday 10/31 - ER
Friday 11/1 - No school
Monday 11/4 - No School
Tuesday 11/5 - No School

Veterans Day is the following Monday 11/11.

If someone needed to book international travel to visit family, 10/26-11/11 would be perfect and your child would only miss 5 days of school and you could have a 17 day trip. And you know that 10/29 and 10/30 are going to be nothing days.